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{
    "id": 810699,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/810699/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 247,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Ng’ongo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "other Bill that was a Private Member’s Bill. However, I want us to confine ourselves more specifically to the Bill that is before us. I have the following issues: First, it is on Clause 7 about the constitution of the board of trustees. It is clear that there will be a representative from the Council of Governors. I support that. There will be two representatives from the county public service boards. I support that. I also support the representation from the county assemblies and trade unions. However, there is a line ministry, which is the National Treasury. I strongly believe that we need a representative in the board of trustees from that ministry because then how would that ministry be offering oversight if you exclude it entirely? Actually, as a matter of fact, if you look at the State Corporations Act, it is actually a requirement under Section 6 of that Act that the line ministry needs to be represented in the boards where it has interest in overseeing. I also have a problem on the election of the Chair. If you allow the Chair to be elected by trustees, the problem is that you are likely to compromise the independence of that Chair. This is debatable. I think we need to really look at this matter critically and see if it is better if this Chair is appointed in some way, maybe, by the Cabinet Secretary to protect his or her independence or we need the Chair to be elected by other trustees. My fear is the moment you allow the Chair to be elected by other trustees you are likely to compromise his or her ability to perform. I do not know whether there is need really to have vice chair of a scheme like this. In my view, I think you need to have a chair and the rest remain as trustees. We also need to be very clear on the appointment of the CEO and what he needs to do. I forgot to say that when you compare this Bill to the other one, you find that the LAPTRUST Fund is administered externally. The Fund is administered externally by some private company. You do not have much control over that. We need to be clear whether this Fund will be administered internally or externally. Clause 9 (1) says that a trustee shall hold office for a term of three years and may be eligible for reappointment for a further and final term of three years. We need to be clear whether the CEO is also included. The CEO is also classified as one of the members of the board of trustees and shall be the secretary. We need to exempt the CEO of the board of trustees from the requirement of serving for three years and a further renewal of three years. The CEO will be recruited competitively as spelt out under Clause 18 of the Bill. If you have recruited someone competitively, that person cannot be there just for three years and another three years. We need to be clear. If we want the CEO to serve for a maximum of six years, we need to be clear. If the CEO will continue serving beyond six years, we need to exempt him from this requirement of serving for three years and a further term of three years. Clause 10 talks about the removal of trustees and gives the responsibility entirely to the Cabinet Secretary. We need to come up with a clearly defined procedure of removing trustees. Among the trustees, there will be a representative from the Council of Governors, two representatives from county public service boards and a representative of the county assembly board. If you allow the Cabinet Secretary to remove people who have been appointed or sponsored to this board of trustees by those institutions, you will compromise their independence and integrity. That trustee will perform at the pleasure of the Cabinet Secretary. It is important that as a House, we capture that clearly. I do not know whether it is in the Report of the Committee on how the removal of trustees would take place. There are other provisions, but because of time I will move quickly to the most important ones. We need to also be very clear on who will be the administrator of the scheme. That is one of the points of disagreement between the administration of the funds, which probably brings about the differences between the two Bills. One advocates for internal administration while The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}