Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 808700,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/808700/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 287,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Westlands, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Timothy Wetangula",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 3036,
        "legal_name": "Timothy Wanyonyi Wetangula",
        "slug": "timothy-wanyonyi-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. First, I want to declare that I am a member of the Committee on Delegated Legislation. I can assure you this is a very serious Committee and even when you look at the attendance, normally it is almost 100 per cent and we look at these documents with a lot of finesse. We make sure that we give value to our work. One of the issues that came up is about public participation. Public participation is a constitutional provision. Looking at the Regulations, whenever there is a violation of that provision, we can annul the entire Regulations, even at that point, because there is no need for us to go further to look at them. It is very serious and should be taken seriously by all the regulation-making authorities. The other thing is that the Parliamentary Service Commission had no mandate to make those Regulations. Only the Cabinet Secretary of the National Treasury has the mandate. Maybe they should have asked him to do it on their behalf. That is why when we looked at them, we saw a glaring violation of the law and had to deal with that seriously by recommending an annulment. Most of our brothers in the Senate were in this House when they passed the Constitution. They wanted a weak Senate. Immediately after the 2013 Elections, they realised that they ended up in that House and wanted to allocate some powers to themselves which was outside the law. That is why they are struggling to be relevant. I also encourage them to benchmark. Maybe they should go and look at how the House of Lords works. It does not sit every day. They only sit when there is need. I do not think the Senate has so much work that they should sit every day. They can be sitting only when there is need and they want to perform their oversight role. To perform that role, they can just move around and I am sure the Senate has a big enough budget to facilitate that. Annulment of these Regulations will give the CS another chance to relook at it and then we can look at it again. We are just trying to assert our authority as the National Assembly. We are sending a signal that we will not be a House that rubberstamps everything that is brought before it but are taking matters very seriously."
}