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{
    "id": 772646,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/772646/?format=api",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "(SBC). I have served previously in the House Business Committee (HBC) in the National Assembly. So, it is not entirely new. However, I have heard the comments by Members, that we want the Senate to be taken seriously and exercise the mandate that it should. The reference that Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. was looking for is that - I kept saying and still say that in as much as this is the “upper” House and the National Assembly is the “lower” House but it is the “lower” House with the upper hand. That is how things are unless we decide. Nobody will give us additional mandate. It is up to us to decide what to do within the confines of the law as it exists and even as we move to look at the law. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you go to the National Assembly and if you are honest with yourself – I tell you and hon. Senators that you cannot compare the work ethic – at least of the Eleventh Parliament - at the National Assembly with that of the Senate. The Majority Leader in the National Assembly, hon. Duale is there every day up until very late. They process Bills. He has time for his Members. I hope that is what we will have in this House as well. If we are looking for additional mandate, we must also be able to put in work that is commensurate with the mandate that we want. I know it because as a Member of the National Assembly in the last Parliament. I brought a Bill to this House but I think it took close to seven months to move beyond Second Reading. Getting a delegation to vote would take so long in this House. It would not be easy to get things passed. So, even if you were sitting in the Executive and had a Bill that you wanted processed quickly, of course, you would send it to the National Assembly. You would not bring it to a House where even getting delegations to vote or a bill processed in less than three months is difficult. Therefore, I hope we are all ready to pull up our socks and put in the kind of work, time and energy that is required to make this House as relevant as we desire it to be. It works both ways. I am not sure about the Twelfth Parliament in the National Assembly but I can attest to the fact that if you compared the last two Houses, there was a lot of effort that was put in the National Assembly. I also understand that the leadership of the Senate did its best but I understand the frustrations they had in getting Members to come and be available in the House just to vote. Also, getting quorum in Committees was difficult in the last Senate. I hope Members will be able to attend Committees, and if one is a leader of a county delegation and has not delegated to somebody else in the delegation, please do that so that we can always have business moving fast. That way, as Chairs of Committees, the Leader of Majority and the rest of the leadership, we can persuade the different ministries to make sure that business comes first to the Senate and that they can deal with us directly. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in addition, I urge Members – when we talk about a bipartisan approach to matters, I agree with it completely. Members know that is the kind of politics I subscribe to. I call it siasa safi because once we are elected, our work is to serve but as a Member of Jubilee, my work will be to persuade my colleagues in NASA to support the agenda on which the manifesto of the Government is being run. If we do not agree on it, then we agree to disagree. It is foolhardy to expect that Members from this side of the House will then in the spirit of bipartisanship drop an agenda that they went to the people with their presidential candidate because NASA also went to the people with their presidential candidate with an agenda."
}