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{
    "id": 469619,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/469619/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support the Motion. I congratulate the Senator for Keiyo, the total man Senator for bringing the Motion. This is a Motion that sheds a lot of light on problems that are going on in the country. Those county representatives have a lot of responsibilities as enumerated by Sen. Murkomen. Right now, it is budget time, but they have adjourned their sittings indefinitely, meaning that neither will they pass budgets nor will they approve the county executive committees. Nothing is going on. What we are seeing is a whole lot of arrogance. I have a county representative in Bungoma County who represents 38,000 voters; one county representative, a lady. She comes from almost 100 kilometres away from Bungoma Town. She has to travel by bus, matatus or piki piki to go legislate for the county. If you look at Nairobi, you will see that 60 per cent of the county’s GDP comes from Nairobi. You are saying that the county representative in Nairobi earns Kshs61,000 and yet, we know how much the rents here cost and the cost of education. We have young graduates who have left their careers to go into politics. You are telling them that asking for proper remuneration is comparable to greed. I do not know what the word “greed” means any more. We have people like rejectionist philosophers, unemployable people running on the streets of Nairobi saying all manner of things against anybody and everybody everywhere. They are the ones who went to dump pigs at the gates of the National Assembly. To borrow the words of Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, “such fellows are so profane that they are only beneath pigs and dogs.” That is what Robert Mugabe said to people of such behaviour. They must be sensitive to others. We have our Muslim colleagues who go to that Parliament. How should they feel when they find pigs at the gate of the National Assembly? We must find a way of bringing sanity to our public lives. This country needs proper direction. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission must listen and find out what jobs people are doing. You will hear them talking and wonder whether they have dropped from outer space and yet the Commissioners themselves are earning extremely obscene salaries. These are obscene salaries that nobody else is getting in Government. They are giving us unsolicited lessons about the economy by saying that it is not doing well and that when it is doing well, they will look into these issues. This country will not run like that. If this is an attempt to truncate devolution, we want to put them on notice that they will fail because this Senate is there to protect devolution. We will protect devolution and make sure that it works. I recommend that we go beyond this as a Senate and call upon the Executive. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission is independent to the extent that nobody interferes with it, but it is not independent to harm others. This will not be allowed. I beg to support. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}