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{
    "id": 782942,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/782942/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 404,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I rise to support the amendments. This is one of those Bills that lapsed in the last Parliament for I remember discussing it in the National Assembly and it is important that we expedite it. In fact, while still on that issue, we need to do something to this House because it appears that we have very few Bills and we are engaging in Statements as if a lot of the work of this Senate is on Statements. The core business of Members is to pass legislation because no matter how good the Statements are - I am not trying to belittle them since they are owed to the Members - they do not enforce anything as such. We may have all the answers but what will really last forever is the amount of Bills that we will pass. As per our last discussion during the induction, we had 90 Bills that we can revive going forward. There are so many areas of legislation. Anyway, that is a discussion for another day, though it will be good if we amend the Standing Orders to have a sitting every Wednesday for us to canvass as many Statements as possible. On the issue of National Emblems, especially the flag, it is usually very exciting to see our flag being hoisted when we win a race as a country. One usually gets excited when outside the country and they find someone wearing a wristband with the flag of the country, yet some of the people that we come across doing so are not even Kenyans. Some of them are tourists who came here and fell in love with our country. The fact that the flag has been associated with the Government makes it very rare for one to use such colours when they are campaigning and this even applies to politics. In fact, if you want to lose an election, the best way to go is to put on your posters the national flag colours. This even applies to those who are from the party that is actually forming the Government of the day for there is a way in which the restriction of the use of the national colours has actually stigmatized the very use of those colours. If one uses those colours, they will be associated with the Government. That is not good for we are supposed to be proud of our own heritage since the national flag unites us. It is very symbolic and has a lot of meaning. The black at the top represents the people, white calls for peace, red symbolizes the struggle and green represents our very fertile grounds. These are things that we are supposed to be proud of for when you look around, there are countries that seem to be copying our own flag. For example, the only difference between our national flag and that of South Sudan is the blue at the corner. We are supposed to make this free and available to Kenyans and it should not be restricted to Government officials alone. Everybody is aware of how communities celebrate if one of their own sons and daughters is able to fly a flag; in this case having a ministerial position. The restricted use of the national flag is a manifestation of the lack of patriotism in this country. The fact that a flag can be seen to be for citizens who are pro-government 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."
}