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{
    "id": 670044,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/670044/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 228,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "Therefore, those who get the privilege to be elected should have the capacity to discharge their duties properly. I have heard many Members saying that Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln did not have university degrees but were great leaders. That was then. In my view, to compare that with now is like comparing apples with rotten oranges. I remain a strong proponent of the university degree. Looking at the responsibilities that the Constitution has given the county assemblies, I believe that the grace period we are giving MCAs to 2022 to acquire university degrees, requires an amendment. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have seen some MCAs who have literally suffered a little car shock. It is like some of them have been pinching themselves from when they were elected still wondering if they are not just living a very long dream. Looking at the wastages in the counties, the demarcation between oversight, supervision and outright micromanagement is a problem in the counties. The other day I was talking to some MCAs from my county and I asked them to give me an appreciation of Kshs1 million. They were surprised when I told them that it will take them 20 days to count one to Kshs1 million. I want to challenge Members of this House to go and try asking their MCAs that. If you are not doing anything, it will take you 60 years to count one to Kshs1 billion. They do not have basic appreciation yet they are people who are supposed to superintend over budgets running into tens of billions. They cannot even appreciate what numbers mean. Budgets from our counties are nothing more than horrendous cases of copy and paste ventures. In fact, I saw a budget in my county with references to a sub- county in another county because those charged with the responsibility to scrutinise that budget do not have the capacity to look at it. Other than the university degree requirement, the provision under Clause 5, which seeks to amend Section 13 of the Election Act by making it a requirement for political parties to nominate their candidates for general elections at least 90 days before the election, is good. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we cannot be complaining about the fidelity of the general elections, when the fidelity of elections in our own political parties is in question. If our own elections at political party level are nothing but a mayhem and clear rule of the jungle, then what right do we have to complain about the fidelity of elections at the national level? This has happened because even the period for dispute resolution has hardly been there. You go through party elections and within a week you are required to have gone through dispute resolution. Some of these grievances are genuine. How many times do we hear of party nominations? People go to the polling stations and the election materials are not there. They resort to tearing pages of exercise books and using plastic containers as ballot boxes. It is a cacophony of modifications that clearly laughs in the face of a process that is supposed to churn out the leaders of this country. We need to clean these political parties nomination process so that it does not become a life and death affair. We know our country is still very polarised, and sometimes getting a political party nomination is as good as coming to Parliament."
}