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{
    "id": 477717,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/477717/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 257,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker. I actually wanted to remind my good friend, hon. (Eng) Gumbo, that I was actually a Minister close to nine months. That is quite significant. Actually, if you remember the time of Moi, it used to be even shorter. You could be a Minister for two months. I do not have any award from the State and I have made contributions. Someone who got 2940 votes, to be exact, has such titles. Anyway, thank hon. Speaker. Now, getting back to the point, I have been listening to the Mover of the Bill, the Leader of Majority Party. Looking at the Bill itself because I had time to look at it, actually I find about seven Acts of Parliament in that Bill that I am particularly concerned with. The amendments to those Acts are so significant that they would not be treated as Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments). So, hon. Speaker, I ask myself why I cannot oppose this Bill. I have no reason not to oppose the Bill in its entity. This is a Bill that I cannot support. For good reasons; one, this country for a long time, we fought imperial presidency. Actually, immediately after Independence, we were confronted by a monster called imperial presidency. For so many years and so many decades we fought this monster of imperial presidency until we got a new Constitution in 2010. It was not easy to get that Constitution. Now, through systematic approach; certain decisions made by the Executive, we are rolling back to imperial presidency. I want to say why this is the case. You remember, apart from passing the various amendments to the police acts; this House, due to tyranny of numbers, was forced to again pass various legislations to regulate the media. That is rolling back. As if that is not enough, now through this miscellaneous amendments Bill we are likely to amend two Acts of Parliament, one is the Kenya Defence Forces Act of 2012 and the National Intelligence Service Act of 2012. So, what we are doing is to return this country to dictatorship. I say that because in the Kenya Defence Forces Act that we are amending, we want to remove the provision which would allow Parliament to approve deployment of troops. Certainly, that is unconstitutional. Not only unconstitutional---"
}