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"id": 772638,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Dullo",
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"legal_name": "Dullo Fatuma Adan",
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"content": "Thank you Mr. Speaker, Sir. I rise to support the Motion on the nomination of the House Business Committee, for the House to start running. I have listened to various speakers before me. I want to reiterate the issues of constitutionalism and rights. It is important for all of us to know that rights come with responsibilities. You cannot claim that you have a right when you are violating other peoples’ rights. That is important for us to understand. Secondly, this is the Second Senate. The First Senate was on a learning curve. I am sure that we have drawn a lot of lessons from the last Parliament that we should correct. We should also seal the gaps that are there in terms of legislation, practice and what we need to practice. Thirdly, I will talk about the issue of oversight and the Senate. On Friday, I was in my County on the invitation of my Governor. There were some donors who were pooled together by some organization called Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC). These donors said that they had to go through that particular organization for them to fund the Arid and Semi-arid Land (ASAL) counties. Turkana, Isiolo, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Lamu and Tana River were represented. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was the only Senator who was there. I think that this is something that we seriously need to discuss as a Senate. When it comes to funds, the body that is supposed to oversight all the monies that go to the counties is the Senate. If we do not take our work seriously, we will just become irrelevant. So, when we talk of being bipartisan, these are areas we really need to work on because we cannot speak of being bipartisan when it just interests us, as an individual and as a party. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want us to challenge ourselves; the leadership and yourself as the Speaker to assert our position; we must make this Senate relevant. If we do not do that, then I do not see why we are sitting in this House. When we are actually invited to meetings, we do not have anything to talk about. You will find that a governor has his own funds as well as the Members of the National Assembly. But when it comes to Senators, we are just flower girls, like somebody has just mentioned. So, Mr. Speaker, Sir, can you help this Senate to become relevant? The other point I wanted to raise is the issue of the Senate sitting outside this particular House. This is a matter we discussed even in the last Parliament. For the Senate to be seen as being relevant and to be seen to be working, we should be able to have sittings in various counties so that the impact and effect of the counties is felt. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other issue I wanted to raise is with regards to the Devolution Conference. In the last Parliament, we had a lot of issues concerning the Devolution Conference because we were not considered as equal partners in that function, yet this House is part and parcel of the conference. Since you are new with this particular conference – although you have been on the other side – it is good to go back to the records and see the concerns of this particular House and the Senate as a whole before we agree to attend the upcoming conference. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to support."
}