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"id": 592436,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/592436/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I will be very brief. This is a report from the Committee that we went through in a retreat and every Senator who attended supported that it is necessary to pass the report, approve it and move on to look at the Bill. The Constitution of Kenya 2010, created a new structure of governance, legislation, judiciary and devolution in this country. There is no doubt that over 70 per cent of Kenyans overwhelmingly approved the Constitution in the referendum. They were driven by the attraction of devolution. Devolution came as matter of necessity with a bicameral system of Parliament where we have the National Assembly and the Senate. During the time of Constitution making, many of the participants did not appreciate what the Senate ought to be and what devolution stood to gain by the existence of the Senate. Mr. Temporary Speaker Sir, many of the Members of the Committees in Naivasha were Members of the then Parliament, which is now the National Assembly. One can understand how and why they were not able to appreciate the structure of the Senate, its role and mandate. There was a debate in Naivasha as to whether the Senate as currently constituted, should have been called “House of Chiefs” or “House of Elders.” Somebody even had an outrageous proposal that the Senate was supposed to sit for two months in a year. Another one was proposing that there should not be a Senate, but an ad hoc Committee, that would be called upon from time to time to perform certain national functions. Obviously these were statements, borne out of, not necessarily ill-will, but lack of knowledge and appreciation of the new dispensation that the country was walking into. Now that we are there, and have crossed the Rubicon, if you remember the Roman war days, once you cross the Rubicon, you either came back as a hero having won the war, or came back as a corpse having been killed at war. There was no running back. In this case, the Rubicon has been crossed. We now have the Senate and the National Assembly. For us to pull through what we are prosecuting now, we will need the concurrence of the National Assembly because constitutional Bills must pass through both Houses of Parliament. Therefore, we have this very beautiful idea that we must market to our colleagues in the National Assembly, and where there will be a necessity for a referendum, to market to Kenyans. Fortunately, if you speak to ordinary Kenyans out there, at least the ones I normally speak to, and from all over the country, there is a distinct impression that Kenyans area quite appreciative of the existence, performance and the role of the Senate. This with the little authority vested in the Senate notwithstanding, it is with the enormous constrains that the Senate suffers and the difficulties under which the Senate operates. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this House has been operating with very reasonable degree of restraint in trying to respond to some of the machinations, the malice and the belittling that we 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."
}