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{
    "id": 594145,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/594145/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 310,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "October 21, 2015 SENATE DEBATES 40 Sen. Sang",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I rise to second this Motion. I thank the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Sen. Wako – omwami wa Baluhya, which means the leader of the Luhya – for guiding the Select Committee into developing this very important Bill. We are lucky as a House that the Chairperson of the Committee is one of the longest serving Attorney-Generals (AGs) in the entire Commonwealth, I am told. We could not have had a better person experienced in matters of legislation and more specifically, developing a Bill to establish the County Attorney Office. Therefore, even in his remarks as he moved the Bill, he has gone into the details. We have had several impeachment Motions against various county governors in this House. In each of them, one of the fundamental issues being raised is outright contravention of the law. When we interrogated and took governors through what they have committed against the law, many of them kept telling us that apparently, they got wrong legal advice. Right now in counties, the office that would be an equivalent to what we are trying to establish is the office of the Legal Advisor to the Governor. Most of these positions have been filled through political machinations. You are one person who strongly supported governors that a legal advisor should not be a person who has a diploma in law from a small college in town that is on top of a shopping centre. Somebody has a certificate or diploma and he is appointed to be the legal advisor to the governor because there are no qualifications for that position. This is the person you expect to give independent legal advice to a governor or county government. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in one of the impeachment Motions, we had a situation where a governor literally mortgaged his entire county. He committed several hectares of land in his county to some briefcase company abroad in the name of an investment of Public Private Partnership (PPP) towards establishing a solar plant in the county. Unknown to the governor, the agreement that they signed allowed that particular company to use the title or the lease agreement between them and the county government to acquire a loan anywhere in the world. When that was interpreted to the governor, he was shocked. You realise that the governor received wrong legal advice. We went on to establish the qualifications of the very legal advisor and realized that it was just a person who had gone through paralegal training in a small college in town and was masquerading in the village as a lawyer. I think this will save our counties. The Mover of the Bill, our very own Attorney General Emeritus, pointed out that one of the key components of this Bill is to establish an independent office of the County Attorney within the county. This will ensure that we have a properly trained and qualified person to man and run this office within the county; and that county governments receive the best legal advice available. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, some of the Bills and legislations being developed and enacted within counties are obviously unconstitutional and contradict already existing national laws. We have seen county assemblies developing or county executives proposing to county assemblies legislations on matters that are not even devolved to the counties. We have seen county assemblies passing legislation to establish a university within the county and saying that it is part of their County Integrated Development Plan 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."
}