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{
    "id": 478001,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/478001/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Waiganjo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2644,
        "legal_name": "John Muriithi Waiganjo",
        "slug": "john-muriithi-waiganjo"
    },
    "content": "As a matter of fact, even the Director of Public Prosecutions is unable to prosecute hate speech cases because of lack of this Commission. It is an important commission. When we sat, we had personnel seconded to us from the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, one Dr. Opiyo Owino. So, we had a lot of insight in what we were doing. This is a negotiated report, on behalf of this House I must say. We took very many and long hours trying to balance regions and ethnic communities. Closer look of this Report will tell you that we managed to pick people who generally represent professional associations. You will notice the first name of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, even if she remains to give institutional memory to this Commission, she is also a senior advisor for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a co-convener of Citizens for Peace, former Commissioner and also a founder of Uwiano. So, we were not just looking at regions, but we were going deeper and looking at qualifications of each applicant. That was not without challenges because not all the regions would have been represented in this Report and not every region would necessarily give us a Commissioner. As you know, there are 47 counties and we only needed to have eight commissioners. We had 250 applicants and to cut down that number to a mere 32, was in itself a challenging task. So, we did our best and even the 32 that remained and the eight that we now present to this House, we are not certain that they will be nominated because out of 15, only eight will make it to the Commission. We have representatives of the Association of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which is ably represented by Rose Mghoi from Taita Taveta. I think it is also fair to mention that we are at the same time encouraging intermarriages, but when it comes to appointments, we appear now to want to push out those we already accepted in unions. That is not fair. It still happened when we had post election violence. You are from a particular region married to a person from another region and when violence erupts, your wife is no longer yours and your husband now becomes a person of an opposite tribe. It is very unfair. Even if we want to balance ethnicity and regions, we should also have something more than that. We should know that we are a united Republic of Kenya. We are brothers and sisters of this country. So, let us not act and perpetuate the hatred that is already at boiling point. I was happy about the appointment of hon. Francis ole Kaparo. When he appeared before us, we did not expect him to give us the insights he gave. Lately, you know he has been involved in conflict resolution in Marsabit, a violence prone area. Members who are pleading with the President to appoint chairman from one region are exercising presidential prerogative. But it is not harmful to mention that a particular candidate may be very helpful to this Republic by looking at his track record, or what he has done lately. The fact that he was a member or a chairman of URP is neither here nor there. First, he is no longer the chair of that party and secondly, it is not wrong to be a chair of a political party; in fact it is a plus. Having united parties is even better so, for me, I think he will bring more cohesion and will also help in the cohesion and integration in this country. I notice a mistake in the Report, which is either typographical or otherwise. The seventh nominee; Irene Njeri Wanyoike is indicated to have come from Nyeri and that is not true. I think it is important to make a correction there because this is a Nairobi nominee. This is a person from Nairobi and not Nyeri, so that we may not mistake obvious appointments which we know are coming from particular regions. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}