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{
    "id": 676010,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/676010/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 114,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Chepkong’a",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1154,
        "legal_name": "Samuel Kiprono Chepkonga",
        "slug": "samuel-kiprono-chepkonga"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, I rise to second. I can see Hon. Wamalwa is wondering why Hon. Chepkong’a is seconding. He knows that, of course, I would have opposed it, but I want to assure him that as a Committee we stand with the HBC. The reason why I agree with them - this is a discussion we had in the Committee - is that we did not want to appear to be an impediment to the Select Committee. In fact, we rue the idea that if we had come up with a recommendation that supports the petition we would have completely messed up the work of the Select Committee. The reason being we would have then required the President to appoint a tribunal, which would have taken us too long. As you know, we are very reasonable people as Members of Parliament. In fact, when we concluded consideration of the petition we had a sitting in camera with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners, details of which I will not disclose here, and they were very favourable in terms of our discussion. We have no doubt that the Select Committee will be able to resolve this issue. We just want to allow them time to come up with a recommendation that will be acceptable to this House. I see too many issues that are being raised in newspapers and in the media in general that the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs has, indeed, cleared the IEBC commissioners. That is far from the truth. The truth is that we were thrown into a frenzy when we were given a court order by Justice Lenaola, which expunged all negative and adverse references in the Special Auditor-General’s Report that the Petitioner had relied upon. Now, faced with that order that clearly stated--- For avoidance of doubt, Members may want to know. This is what Justice Lenaola said:- “An order is hereby issued directing the respondent [Auditor-General] to delete the information in the second row of page 28 in the Special Investigation Report, on the procurement of electronic voting devices for the 2013 general elections, of 6th June 2014 that adversely mentions the petitioner and any other information in the said report that adversely mentions the petitioner.” What Justice Lenaola did was to decapitate the report by removing any adverse references that had been made in the report against the commissioners. So, the report as it were ceased to exist and so there was nothing for us to consider in that report. When Mr. Nyukuri presented his Petition, we had almost written an obituary of the IEBC commissioners until we were given this court order. For those who were listening to our cross- examination of the commissioners, we were very clear. We thought that they were incompetent until we were thrown this order, which completely messed us up. It ruined and frustrated our hopes. It was not the intention of this Committee at all to clear anyone. We did not clear anyone at all. It is the court. If there is anybody to be blamed, it is the court. You cannot blame Chepkong’a because I never considered the merits of the accusations because the merits were removed by the court. So, we had nothing to consider. I would like to table this ruling by Justice Lenaola for the public to look at."
}