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{
    "id": 677305,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/677305/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 259,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me the chance to support the Kenya Defence Force (Amendment) Bill. Let me congratulate my Chair for putting it in an orderly fashion. I sit on the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations and we did a lot of work and consultation with regard to this Bill. My Chair has really improved lately. You have to congratulate this Committee. Since you became the Speaker, I do not think you have seen a Committee Chair present a report like this with proposed amendments. That requires some kind of accolades. He used to be very bad. However, this morning I congratulated him for conducting the meeting correctly. Even as we support the Bill, there are some issues which were raised. So that I do not run the risk of repeating what my Chair has enumerated, I only want to talk about Clauses 11, 13 and 34 of the Bill. We thought that the KDF was trying to do what they should not do in the 21st Century. Things have changed across the world and we want to be lawful. An attempt to try to haphazardly extend the term of the Chief of General Staff would not make sense. Those issues we raised. Further, where the KDF would, through the Cabinet Secretary, inform the National Assembly after deployment of the forces is outrightly unconstitutional. It is required that this House approves any deployment. It beats logic to inform us after you deploy the forces. That would be the norm of the day. It is very important. I had a very big issue with this Bill in Clause 34 where there was an attempt by the KDF to make the National Youth Service (NYS) and the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) auxiliary forces that are deployable in combat situations. I have been making a lot of noise in this House. One day the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) will say Midiwo was right if they will be there to say it. Somebody decided that we need the NYS to be part of the security of this House. We are given security by the State. This is a national institution that the State security organ needs to be in charge of. We should not be in a scenario where we are not the ones who command police The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}