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"id": 490263,
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"speaker_name": "Hon. Midiwo",
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"content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker. I understand the situation hon. Shill is in. I will speak for him as he is my brother and also my chair. I rise to second the Motion moved by hon. Shill, even though he did not have enough time to talk. We had over one week to look at these nominees. The nominees are many and the Committee followed the Public Appointments (Parliamentary Approval) Act and the Constitution to arrive at the report that is before this House. From the outset, I need to point out something. The Act we used is one which is quite misunderstood by hon. Members and members of the general public. This is because we found out, as a committee, that it is generally deficient. A lot of questions Kenyans asked were like the vetting criteria and other things which are not in law. These candidates, in my view, are people of various backgrounds. It is also good to note that under this system we are not the appointing authority. The appointing authority is the Executive; we are just a vetting authority. In the absence of a good law, which this House must make, anybody will pass our test unless they have a criminal record. That is something this House needs to be alive to, and check and decide what the criteria should be and what qualifications public officers whom we want to vet should have and how we will vet them so as to satisfy the set legal requirements. I thank the Committee through our chair, I will not be wrong to say that we have said we will be looking at the law. But let me say that this is the first group of diplomatic nominees we have vetted in Parliament. I think this is a good start and we just need to improve on it. There are many things we looked at. You may say a nominee does not have a degree. We looked at every law and there was nothing on degrees. Therefore, you cannot disqualify nominees because they have basic education. We went that direction and talked for hours and hours. However, there are some nominees who obviously qualified. Therefore, it is a balanced list, in my view. There were issues which were raised; an example is the issue about the youth and gender. We want the Executive to understand that the majority of Kenyans are youth and women. When you are making appointments, especially of diplomats, you cannot say that there is a proper balance because they will work in the embassies. Some of them are just tea girls. We want people to be nominated as per law, so that, as a country, we appear to be obeying the laws of the land. Hon. Speaker, the other issue Kenyans have been talking about is age. Having spoken about the youth, I now turn to the aged. Questions were asked whether a nominee like hon. Ongeri is still within the accepted age. Hon. Speaker, I know hon. Ongeri personally. He is like my father. His children are my friends. There is no law that you could use to stop hon. Ongeri from becoming a representative. We wrote to the EACC about many of these people and we got a letter that said: “There is nothing that can stop all these nominees from taking their positions. Even the ones which are under investigation, came and we cleared them. With regard to hon. Makwere and hon. Ongeri, who are our former colleagues here, if I was the appointing authority I would have appointed younger people because there are many young unemployed Kenyans. This is not up to me; it is the digital Government of Jubilee, which is youth-driven and everything is about youth. Therefore, if they choose to go against their own rules, it is not for me to say otherwise. Hon. Speaker, I only wish that my colleague, hon. A.B. Duale, was here. The nomination of hon. Makwere and hon. Ongeri by the Jubilee Government is hypocritical because they have been saying that some people are too old and they should quit politics. They said hon. Raila and hon. Kalonzo Musyoka are old. Now they have given us a 76- year old and 70-year old and we have no problem. We are saying that there is something good in the youth and the old. All of us together make Kenya. In view of this I do not want to hear people at funerals telling me who should retire from politics. It is not for presidents only; it is for anything. We want all Kenyans to be equal and not to be discriminated against on age. I was in politics in 2002. We made Kibaki President when he was 72 years old and nobody complained. He was competent! So, let us not talk about trivial issues. I know that this list has some people who we would wish to say that there are better qualified Kenyans than them. However, it is a good start. We will work a law that gives qualifications as per the wishes of Parliament. So far, I personally feel that other than the deficiency in law, it is a good start and it can get us somewhere. If we all follow the law, everybody will be satisfied. I know Maj. Gen. Otieno personally. He is a qualified Kenyan. I know Nkaisserry would like to say it is because he is Luo, but it is okay because even Luos are Kenyans. I know Waziri Githae as a competent Kenyan. Hon. Speaker, we had a Minister whose name I cannot mention here who was very arrogant to Members of Parliament until Githae went to Treasury. I have nothing against him and I know he will help clean the image of Kenya in Washington. I know he is a sober guy."
}