Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 719603,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/719603/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 234,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ogola",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1264,
        "legal_name": "Gideon Ochanda Ogolla",
        "slug": "gideon-ochanda-ogolla"
    },
    "content": "Section 3 of the Bill talks about removing Parliament from the appointment of members of the commission. The Chairman of the Committee has said that he does not want Parliament to be removed. What else is the Bill doing if this is not agreeable to the Chairman of the Committee? The Bill is poorly drafted because there is no Section 6 of the Act as required to be put in the Bill because they are amending Section 6 yet it is not in the sections to be amended at the end of the Bill. Clause 4 of the Bill attempts to amend Section 6. It is only trying to enable the reappointment of those who have been appointed. I do not see the need for that because the appointment process is already provided in the principal Act. Clause 5 of the Bill seeks to remove Parliament from considering the proposals for privatisation of any parastatal. The Chairman of the Committee said that he does not want that to happen. Clause 6 of the Bill talks about setting the quorum. All the six sections of the Bill have no real meaning, consequence or betterment of the lives of Kenya. I want to give a scenario: Today, a President tells members of a commission: “Your term expires next year, but I can re-appoint you if you do certain things including accepting the proposal to privatise National Bank”, because somebody wants to run for presidency and does not have a bank and they know that it is easier to run for presidency when one has one. He creates something that enables him to acquire National Bank. I am only giving an example. They will sell the National Bank for a song and because Parliament is not required to approve it, it goes to the Cabinet. The current Cabinet under the current Constitution has only two politicians; the President and the Deputy President and everybody else is an appointee of the President and they have only one allegiance to the President. If the President asks them to pass the privatisation plan, they will pass it because it does not have to come to the House. We will only see in the newspapers that the National Bank was sold. Is that what you want to achieve in Kenya? The oligarchs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) stripped the assets of the USSR through such means. They took the gas and the transport companies and everything else. They became super rich and the Russians became poor. If we allow this to happen, we will make the political class and the connected people strip this country of all its assets for a song. What happened in the USSR will happen in this country. We saw a hotel which was held because there were concerns of taxpayers’ monies having been lost in acquiring it."
}