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{
    "id": 609642,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/609642/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, many Kenyans have also asked me why the Senate requires a special sitting to make deliberations on matters that have occurred in the recent past that assaulted independent institutions. I told them that although we make pronouncements in churches, funerals and barazas, such pronouncements have no effect until this House pronounces itself in a formal sitting like this one. We take seriously the requirements that this House has the responsibility of sitting down and defending the Constitution. It includes making pronouncements that are in support of that Constitution; pronouncements that will take effect can only be made inside this House and formally by a vote that will be taken by Senators later this afternoon. We are here today, dully constituted at a very critical time of our nation, so that we can make pronouncements that are going to protect devolution as well as the place of the Senate and independent institutions. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is important to remind the nation that between 1963 and 1967, we had a working Senate. In my research, I found that the way the Senate was wound up just after independence was first started with pronouncements that initially looked good and in support of reduction of financial expenditure. There was even a time that Hon. Tom Mboya then, a man I dully respect, made pronouncements and said that a young country like Kenya required a strong president, sort of an African chief, so that we do not have these institutions that are scattered all over. I am seeing these arguments coming back. Some people say that we need only one institution that can give orders to the others because they do not want to live by the tenets of democracy. That is a misrepresentation of the old African governance system."
}