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{
    "id": 82110,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/82110/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 331,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for this opportunity. Let me join my colleagues in congratulating our two colleagues, the PS for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Foreign Affairs for taking that very difficult and decisive action of stepping aside to facilitate the investigation, so that the allegations that have been put across against them can be grounded on facts. I do hope that we will actually get to that situation where allegations will be proved to have been facts and not mere allegations. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me also echo the words of Mrs. Odhiambo-Mabona and Ms. Karua in terms of the thresholds of proof that we need in this House. I have had the misfortune of going through this experience. It is painful. I can tell you that it is painful. Everywhere you go, people look at you as the person who was discussed in Parliament. Afterwards, two or three years down the line, there is simply not a shred of evidence to support what was being discussed. We need to rise above the issues of trying to hound one another out of office. The Prime Minister used the words “committees of the House are watchdogs”. The difference between a watchdog and a bloodhound is that a watchdog is put out there. If there is a stranger at the gate, it will bark. Its barking signifies to the owner whether it is a friend to the person, whether it is a hostile person for the owner to then go out and see who is at the gate, and what action he needs to take. On the other hand the bloodhound will follow the scent and say there are narcotics in that bag, or a person disappeared through this route. Those are the investigation agencies that we have set up in this House. So, by trying to combine the two roles of investigation and the watchdog, we are, perhaps, going over the line. Perhaps, it is something we need to look at in terms of how we are operating committees, so that we bring out the issues without necessarily almost making the whole country to believe that somebody has done something wrong when, indeed, we do not have a matter grounded on facts. We must remember our rallying statement in this House: “For the welfare of society and the just government of men”. It is very important---"
}