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{
    "id": 513450,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/513450/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 100,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Zani",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13119,
        "legal_name": "Agnes Zani",
        "slug": "agnes-zani"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. It was very effective today when we had the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Science and Technology. Apart from the Statements that had been sought, more were also put across on the Floor of the House. I think the issue of responses is becoming a real problem in this House. It is putting our chairpersons in situations where they have to do other many things but they cannot do them effectively. As Sen. Haji said, if you have to follow up on somebody twice or thrice, it takes a lot of time. I have seen in other parliaments like Tanzania, they have a schedule of how they call different Cabinet Secretaries to the House and the Members put together questions and direct them at that time. We can still have Statements, but have very concerted efforts at having Cabinet Secretaries in a rotational format come to the House in the Committee of the Whole, as it happened this morning. Then we can actually spend a lot of time and good engagement. What we saw this morning is that when you interrogate, apart from the formal Statement that is given initially to this House by the Cabinet Secretary of Education, Science and Technology, we were able to probe and get into more meaningful discourse. I think that is something that we are missing, for as long as we will rely on Statements that are being given by people who are not even keen on giving them to us, if I go by the example that has been given by Sen. Haji. So, we might just be doing an exercise in futility. We read Statements that we do not really understand where they come from. We do not really get the meat and the issues that are coming out. There is value in having more Cabinet Secretaries coming to meet us. We can think about it and have a rotational way of having them come. It would add value to this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir."
}