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"content": "gritty of how that was going to function and succeed. That is why we are having this Motion now. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have really had problems in trying to translate the role of the Senate vis-a-vis the Senator, and also the role of the governor vis-a-vis the county government. So, what you see these days are that, the governor has immense powers that he continues amassing the wealth without anybody questioning where the wealth is coming from. The Senator has to sit in this Senate without caring how that money will be used. Even when he wants to get to know how the money can be used, there are no provisions and there is no framework on how to go about it. So, this is the reason why you find this Constitution review is necessary. The Motion, therefore, is relevant now that we have had the experience from both Houses. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, you realize that in both Houses, most functions are almost duplicated. A Motion is passed in the “Lower House”, and in the Senate, a similar Motion is passed. A committee to probe an issue is created in the Senate, and another parallel committee is also created in the National Assembly. You find out there is a lot of duplication and this duplication is a waste of time. If we could come up with clear framework as to what roles the National Assembly should play against what the Senate should do and it is well spelt out in the Motion, that is what we should have done earlier. If we had known about this information at the beginning of 2013, may be in April, May or June, by now we would have done a lot of work to our Governments and a lot of work also to our counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, you will realize that if you compare Kenya with other countries like India, America and Nigeria, we are very far apart Whatever we do here in the Senate cannot be compared with what Senators do in America. In America, you rise even to become a president from being a senator, as you have seen what happened to Obama. Here, the scenario is different because what we are doing, we cannot even influence our own counties, because our governors have a lot of powers and no limitation on how to use the money. In this case, therefore, it will be prudent to imagine that the Senate should have been given more powers as it is enshrined in the Motion by Sen. Murkomen. If that happens and it is passed, then it means that we are going to be seen like a House which can discipline someone. Right now, we have failed to exercise our powers. It is like there is no House in existence. We tried to do one Embu case, and we were frustrated. Somebody went all the way to say after all, what is this House doing? It appears that we cannot do much because with that now and the court ruling, it is like similar cases will never come here for us to pass because of the bad past. So, to create an impression that Senate can do something, we need to be seen, and that can only come through this Motion where we have powers. Let us be seen like we are powerful. You noted that even to get a seat in the county assemblies is a problem because you cannot just go and create one, you cannot go and displace the governor, and neither can you say that you want to address the people without permission from the governor. The governor can always say, no. If he says, no, and he has the mandate to even form his own battalion of security forces, he has his own cabinet, he has forces to even recruit whoever The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}