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{
    "id": 539708,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/539708/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 126,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ichung’wah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I also thank my brother hon. Ngeno for surrendering his chance to me. I will be very brief because I have noted that most of what I would have said was adequately covered by the Whip of the Majority Party, hon. Katoo. It is important to say that with the new Constitution we also need a new way of doing things in this country. One of the areas in which we need a new way of doing things is in the running of non-government entities and parastatals in this country. I have seen a habit that was carried on from the old days in this country where Cabinet Secretaries (CSs) even to this day imagine parastatals and other Government agencies are departments within their Ministries. They want to run them as they wish. I have seen instances and what comes to mind now is the most recent instance with the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) where a Principal Secretary (PS) walks into a boardroom where the board is holding a meeting and unilaterally forces the parastatal’s board to suspend or force certain officers to go on compulsory leave without giving them any fair administrative due process of law. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the provisions of Article 47 of the Constitution are very clear. Indeed, if we are to give our civil servants the opportunity to serve either in the parastatals or in the Government departments that they are serving - an opportunity to do that without undue influence - we must be in a position to protect them with a law. This Bill is doing exactly that. It is protecting our civil servants both at the national level in parastatals, at the county levels of government and other agencies of Government so that they feel free to exercise the powers that have been bestowed upon them by the various articles that create the entities that they are running. They should not live in fear that if they do not act to the whims of those who are above them, they may be fired without any due process being followed. Therefore, this is a good Bill and I want to support it. The other thing I want to say is that there is right to have recourse in court. We have seen in the past officers being hounded out of offices and since they have no recourse at all maybe they end up going to court and their cases are dismissed because there was no due process followed or there were not any clear legal provisions that they 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."
}