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{
    "id": 697970,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697970/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 48,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Abdalla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 382,
        "legal_name": "Amina Ali Abdalla",
        "slug": "amina-abdalla"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I beg to support this Bill and congratulate Hon. Ochieng for bringing it. Let me focus on parastatals because that is where we are having the biggest challenge. The problem with our parastatals is that there is no oversight. Individuals are appointed as directors not based on meritocracy. They are there with a lot of conflict of interest. After I read this Bill, I was wondering whether we are addressing the symptoms or the causes of the problem. I believe that after dealing with the symptom, which is the fact that most of these directors of boards do not really know what their role is and they need continuous training as proposed by Hon. Ochieng, we also need to address the appointing authority and how to censure that. If a person is unsuitable, we need to stop him or her from getting into that institution. It is because of that, that I think Hon. Ochieng and the House at the Committee of the whole House stage need to amend Clause 25. If it is voluntary, it means that you will only be punishing those who have joined the institution and not everyone who is a member of board of directors. In my opinion, we will need to amend Clause 25, so that a director cannot serve in another board if he performed poorly or caused losses in an institution that he or she had served before. This Bill is too voluntary and should be tightened so that we can address the issue of professional board members who kill institutions, another Government comes, they are appointed into better parastatals and they also kill them. It is a vicious cycle. Whereas it is giving an opportunity to people who might not necessarily have that specific technical or managerial skill when joining the boards to be trained, so that they are better at management, we must accept that there is a big weakness in this Bill. It is voluntary and the Government of the day will not have to check that these individuals are members of these boards and problems will persist. Our biggest problem is that we have directors in boards who want to be contractors and usurp the powers of tender committees. When the CEO is powerful as Hon. Chris Wamalwa said, some of them use the board of directors as rubberstamps. There is a converse as well. When the board is made up of very powerful individuals, the CEO is a mere rubberstamp. The issue of checks and balances is not happening. Can that be solved by mere training? The answer is no. Training will help especially when we have punitive measures working across the board, 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."
}