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{
    "id": 546903,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/546903/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 333,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kabando wa Kabando",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 31,
        "legal_name": "Kabando wa Kabando",
        "slug": "kabando-kabando"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I want to make a different observation on the same. Number one, we should not be condemning any Member in his or her absence irrespective of whether the matter is listed or not. That would be condemning somebody and yet there is no substantive Motion on that. This is an administrative matter and it falls on two platforms: Number one is the House administration. The House has qualified administration bureaucrats who should ensure that, when matters are listed, they prompt Members that their matters are appearing on the Order Paper. Sometimes it happens that a matter that is slotted for deliberation in the House the following morning is not on Parliaments website. I have experienced this before. Therefore, if you have another stressing matter on your constituency, or even a national matter, and you are in a Committee, you may not know exactly what matters are coming before the House. That could happen. Secondly, on the question of parliamentary staff, we are spending a lot of public resources to empower parliamentary offices. That means all Members of Parliament, elected or nominated, in both Houses, have staff assigned to them. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I beseech you out of honour and humility to ask for an audit of the money that is given to Members of Parliament, amounting to about Kshs0.3million, for payment of their staff every month; with a view to establishing whether it is being utilised for the purpose for which the personnel have been recruited. It could be the case that the people and office assigned to hon. Members at Continental House, Harambee Plaza and Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) are being used for businesses that have no relationship with parliamentary work. The purpose of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) establishment is to ensure enhancement of the performance of Members of Parliament. The said resources, personnel, equipment and materials should be assigned to specific work for which the Commission has been established, and from which Members are benefitting. This needs parliamentary audit. We also need to find out whether the staff assigned to us are qualified to do the work that they have been employed to do, or we have just lumped into offices people who do not understand how Parliament works, and who cannot even track parliamentary business. At those two levels, we need some audit. Thank you, hon. Deputy Speaker."
}