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{
    "id": 780187,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/780187/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 232,
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    "content": "they must be careful. Sometimes we end up quoting certain sections of the law without keenly thinking of their implications and how people may mischievously choose to misinterpret them and use them for not very good purposes. For example, Clause 8 of this Bill reads as follows: “Except as otherwise provided in this Act, the Committee shall determine its own procedure.” It is an extremely open-ended statement that on many occasions, you will find it being included in many of our Bills. You might not understand what the drafters of this legislation are saying. However, I think there is a way in which we can put it to mean that if there is no direct expression on certain aspects of how meetings are to be conducted, certain measures within the confines of logic can guide these meetings in a proper way without opening room for mischief. That is something for us to consider. I also find that there is a proposed penalty in Claus 10 of the Bill of Ksh300,000 to a public officer who fails to comply with these provisions. We are talking about serious issues here such as the documents that Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. was talking about. We may have an officer in charge of the county finances, but he fails to appear before a committee and he is fined Kshs300,000. This is a fellow who may delay a meeting by a day because he has probably spoken to a local bank and asked them to process for him an overdraft such that by the time he is coming to the meeting, he will have already procured an amount even higher than this Ksh300,000. We might even be talking of an officer who is in charge of the County Asset Register and the governor has lost an election. The fellow might keep that book away for a certain number of days and you do not know what will happen. A perfect example is what happened during the transition from municipal and town councils to county governments. Up to date, there is no single county that has ever been able to reconcile its records of what used to be owned by municipal councils and what is now owned by county governments. If you keenly read through the reports that come to Senate from the Auditor-General, you will realize that there is always a comment that they make about the County Assets Register. Either it is not availed, or it has not been availed in the correct format. In my opinion, for the drafters to propose a fine of Ksh300,000, is a slap on the wrist when you consider such. I want to completely agree and laud your words in Clause 17(4) that states that:- “Failure by the outgoing county governor to hand over the instruments of power to the county governor-elect shall not invalidate the assumption to the office of county governor by the county governor-elect”. I have just spoken about the mischief that is so common with our political practices. We see it every time we have party primaries, nominations and general elections. People do not feel good when they lose an election and they chose not to do the right thing. Therefore, for us to expressly provide it in law that failure to show up or hand over shall not invalidate the election. This is an important piece of legislation because we know some people who have certain ideas and can be mischievous. For example, we have a list of governors who failed to show up during the handing over ceremony of county tools of administration to the incoming governors. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}