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{
    "id": 781427,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/781427/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 251,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Last year or the year before, the courts made a decision on the question of recall of Members of Parliament and Members of the County Assemblies. For that reason, you will realise that in Clause 8 of this Amendment Bill, which amends Section 27 of the principal Act is basically to clean up the law as per the court decision on that Section. It also provides the grounds for recall of a member of county assembly, which includes gross violation of the Constitution, incompetence, gross misconduct and if one is convicted of an offence, which carries a sentence of imprisonment of at least six months. Therefore, sub-clauses (b) and (c) delete sub-sections 3 and 6 of the principal Act because they were discriminating someone who ran for office in the county assembly from initiating a process of removal. So, that is just cleaning to capture the decision of the court and make the Act become constitutional. Section 28 of the principal Act is also being amended to accommodate the requirement that the petitioner should be a voter in the ward. That is, not including other issues of saying that he or she should not have voted and all those other limitations that the courts declared that they were unconstitutional. Clause 10 is very critical because it also makes it possible for the governor to dismiss a County Executive Committee (CEC) member as a right. Currently, most of the CEC members who are dismissed rush to court and say: “Why am I being dismissed? I have not been given the reasons and not violated any law. Am I am incompetent?” It should be the right of the appointing authority to appoint and dismiss at their will; that is for CEC members. That is the same for Cabinet Secretaries at the national level. We must not tie the hands of the governor in terms of changing or removing these officers from office because the person whom the people elected was not that CEC member. We do not want to make them lords and queens that cannot be removed because it is important for the governor to be accountable to the people. He must, therefore, be able to appoint competent or trusted people to deliver on the responsibility. Of course, those CEC members are entitled to their rights and protection in terms of what we call ‘adequate compensation for work done,’ but they must always know that they serve at the pleasure of the governor who appointed them. Clause 11 provides for situations where if a governor-elect dies after he is declared as governor or is unable to assume office for whatever reasons, for instance, through sickness or being involved in an accident et cetera . In that case, the deputy governor should be sworn in and act as the governor for a period of 60 days before a fresh election is done. There is a reason to that. There must be a difference between the case where a deputy governor had already been sworn in and assumed the office. In the circumstance we are discussing here, we do not have a deputy governor who has been sworn in. If the governor dies in that situation, before the deputy governor is sworn in, it will be wrong to say that they should assume office in the normal manner as a deputy governor who had been sworn in and holds office. That provision is there to cover that situation. Of course, I will be willing to listen to other ideas by Members who may want to contribute towards improving this Bill. That is the thinking behind this provision. 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."
}