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"speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Ng’ongo",
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"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. The matter that the Leader of the Majority Party has raised is weighty as it touches on the integrity of this House and how we conduct ourselves. Standing Order No. 191 says as follows: “Committees shall enjoy and exercise all powers and privileges bestowed on Parliament.” From the reading of that, it is clear that when you are transacting parliamentary work or business in a committee, you should conduct yourself in a manner consistent with the way Parliament transacts business. The threshold that is given to the committee is equal to the threshold that is given to the plenary. I want to tie that to Standing Order No. 196 that says: “Except as and to the extent to which the chairperson may otherwise direct for the purpose of facilitating full consideration and discussion of a matter referred to a committee, the procedure in a select committee shall be as nearly as possible, the same as that in the committee of the whole House.” Hon. Speaker, the threshold is already there in our Standing Orders that when you are conducting business in a departmental committee, Public Accounts Committee or any committee, the proceedings of that committee should be carried out the same way we conduct our proceedings in the Committee of whole House. We have been watching proceedings and thank God that we opened up parliamentary business to the members of the public. Nowadays, it is covered live in many media houses. Therefore, that calls upon us to be very careful in the way we conduct ourselves. Many of us, if not all, have been watching committee proceedings. Can we claim genuinely and honestly that the way most of these committee investigations are being conducted, or the way witnesses present themselves in these committees, is as nearly as possible to the way we conduct the committee of the whole House? If you asked me, of late, what I see is very far from that. Hon. Duale spoke about friends of the committee. That is provided for in our Standing Orders. Under Standing Order 195, you are allowed as a Member of Parliament to attend any committee any time. The only thing is that you are not entitled to a vote. When you appear there, it is understood you are representing the interests of your people. You are a representative of the people, not your personal interest or rent-seeking. I also concur with the Leader of the Majority Party. Yesterday, I watched the deliberations going on at the Joint Committee of Agriculture and that of the Trade, Industry and Co-operatives. I saw the way our Members conducted themselves. I was sitting in my office and watching. Thank God, the leadership has allowed me, at least, to watch some things at the comfort of my desk. It used not to happen in the previous two parliaments. When I watched the way my colleagues were conducting themselves, at one point, I thought the Chairman, Hon. Kanini Kega, was losing it. The question you want to ask is: Why should Members conduct themselves in a rowdy manner in a committee that is supposed to investigate a matter as important as the possibility of sugar that we are consuming in this country being poisonous? I thought that our Members should be – let me borrow the words of Hon. Leader of the Majority Party- sober during committee sittings. We cautioned them even when the two committees were struggling to decide which one was supposed to look at this matter. It makes us start asking questions that probably the struggling was not an honest struggle on who should handle the matter. There is a limitation on our mandate as committees spelt out under Standing Order No.197. Before I conclude, the last thing that I want to quote is the Constitution. Article 75 of the Constitution talks about the conduct of State officers and requires a State officer to behave, whether in public, official life, private life or in association with other persons, in a manner that 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."
}