Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 719311,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/719311/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 215,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Secretary will now be empowered to incorporate other stakeholders through regulations for the betterment of that place. The Explosive Act, Cap 115 changes the title of the office and aligns it to the new Constitution. The Income Tax Act, Cap 470 proposes to amend the Income Tax to reinstate an introductory portion of an item which was in the Third Schedule, but had been inadvertently omitted. This Bill proposes to amend the Insurance Act, Cap 487 in order to confer the authority with an additional function of educating the public on the right to elect an underwriter of their choice and also to regulate bank insurance. This is very important especially for the end users of this service. The Clinical Officers (Training, Registration and Licensing) Act, No.9 of 1998, read together with the Community Service Order Act No. 10 of 1998 are just meant to change the terms applicable to be in line with the new Constitution. Since I want to finish very quickly, before we go to the Adjournment Motion, there is a Public Officer Ethics Act No.4 of 2003. There was a proposal brought by the Witness Protection Agency to make the agency responsible for members of its staff. That is very straightforward. Very interesting and I know this is going to be debatable, is a proposal to amend the Sexual Offences Act No.6 of 2006. This provides and corrects some expression and word use in the Act. Most importantly is the fact that it also seeks to protect the rights of a suspected sexual offender for purposes of ensuring that all avenues of appeal against a conviction are exhausted before a court can declare such a person a dangerous sexual offender. The Bill further provides that a register of a sexual offender should be updated on a monthly basis and also proposes to criminalise intentional and unlawful sexual acts in respect of persons who are unlawfully married to each other. Most importantly is that there has been an impression created that the amendment of this Act intends to lower the age of consent from 18 to 16 years. In order to cure this, we shall be introducing a provision at the Committee of the whole House stage relating to the offence or defilement in order to avoid the perceived victimisation of boys under the Act when they engage in sexual activities with their age mates. Remember Romeo and Juliet story. There is also the Competition Act 2010, where the Bill proposes to amend it to provide for the conduct of meetings in the absence of the Chairperson of the Board. Allow me to mention this before I conclude. I talked of 36, but I am just going to mention a few. The proposal to amend the Judicial Service Act No.1 of 2011 is to make a provision for the performance of the duties of the Chief Justice in the absence of both the Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice. Under the new provision, the senior most judge in the Supreme Court shall perform the administrative duties until their relevant positions are filled. This is a reality because it happened just recently when the Chief Justice retired. The Deputy Chief Justice was removed and also retired because of age. This is when we were talking of 70 or 74 years. There was no Chief Justice or Deputy Chief Justice. Therefore, an administrative function was created to allow the senior most judge to act and perform the function of the Chief Justice. We want to put it in law, so that there will be no lacuna in future. There is this Anti-Counterfeit Act, 2008, No.13 where the Bill proposes to clarify the establishment of the Agency and domicile agency in the Ministry of Trade. That is very simple and very straightforward."
}