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{
    "id": 567771,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/567771/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "A political party whose party leader, chairman and executive director are from one community is an extremely undemocratic national party. Members know the details of what I have just said. The point is that we need to detribalise our national parties. That is the future we are headed to. I will be pushing for an amendment with my brother Chris Wamalwa to make it clear that whereas 25 members of a county assembly qualify a party, those members should be from different parts of the country. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have had the issue of accountability for these funds. That is a very important issue. We need to strengthen the provision for accountability of these funds. It is true that the Auditor-General audits the Political Parties Fund. It is very difficult for anybody to try and do anything with these funds. However, we do not want to see Members pushing for more parties to get funding for reasons other than institutionalising the political parties that we have, and making sure political parties run programmes. I am speaking as the national chairman of the most popular party in this country by virtue of the fact that it is a ruling party. I have 32 offices in 32 counties. The little money that we receive right now cannot sustain office rent, salaries and party activities. That is why our Members of Parliament and members of the county assemblies have been very magnanimous to also contribute. As we pursue for more parties to come into this fold, we must ensure that the law is followed to the later. This is because the Political Act provides that the amount to be shared to political parties must be 0.3 per cent of the national revenue. This provision has not been followed so far. This is a matter which we have been pushing the Budget and Appropriations Committee to address and ensure that political parties are given what is due to them. This year, we are supposed to receive Kshs1 billion but what we are getting is a far cry from that amount. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, looking at democracy within political parties, TNA conducted five-ballot nominations in almost 200 constituencies to pick candidates for parliamentary, gubernatorial, senatorial, County Women Representatives and Members of County Assembly elections. By then the presidential candidate had already been chosen. We conducted that exercise with less than 1.3 per cent of the budget that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) used to conduct a similar exercise. Despite that, we had ballot boxes and not buckets, like I saw elsewhere. We had coloured ballot papers with photos for less than 1.3 per cent of the IEBC budget for a similar exercise. In order for us to strengthen democracy, we need to strength political parties’ nomination processes."
}