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{
    "id": 823100,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/823100/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 288,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Saku, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ali Rasso",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13473,
        "legal_name": "Dido Ali Raso",
        "slug": "dido-ali-raso"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to support the Report by this Committee. Those of us who were in the 11th Parliament did not engage with such a report. It was only during kamkunjis that we would raise our voices and talk seriously about issues of concern. Mine is to suggest areas the Committee can undertake studies on in order to make our welfare and that of the staff of Parliament more comfortable. In the span of the remaining part of the 12th Parliament, the Committee should consider developing a handbook, so that when new parliamentarians come in, they have something to go through. We know that when you become a Member of Parliament, you fight to get everything you are entitled to, including offices and telephone services. We even fight for parking lots. If we have a handbook showing what one is entitled to, then one would only fight to get what they are entitled to. The other issue is about offices. Many of my colleagues who have spoken before me have alluded to this point. The outfitting of offices of Members of Parliament should be uniform. Once I walk into the office of the Member for Saku, the outfitting should be the same as that of the Member for Kibwezi or the Member for Alego-Usonga. We should not be walking into our different offices only to find that one is so lavishly furnished and another one is a bare bone office with only two or three seats. The major issue that this Committee must address is that Parliament should not be an animal farm where all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. The Committee has a duty to make sure that new Members are not disadvantaged compared to the older Members who have been in Parliament for a longer time. The other issue is the parking lot. As Members of Parliament drive into the premises of Parliament, they should be assured of getting parking space. Currently, some of the parking lots have been turned into garages. Damaged vehicles occupy a lot of the parking space in Parliament. We want to ask this Committee to even go further and say that 349 parking lots are assigned to Members of the National Assembly so that when I drive into Parliament, I know where to leave my car. My colleagues have talked about catering. In this day and age, the idea of cooking food like in a boarding school has been overtaken by time. When we visit other parliaments around the world, we realise that people have done away with the practice where you cook food in bulk and most of it ends up being wasted. Our good doctor will agree with me that there are lifestyle diseases which are coming up like cancer and diabetes. One of the causative reasons for these diseases is food. The source is food that is not fresh or not properly handled. For that reason, we want the Committee to look at the issue of training the food handlers. Parliament must spend some money to take some of these staff to Utalii College and other places and a few of them who are senior can be exposed to the outside world. Why can we not take a few of them to see for themselves first-hand how the world that is evolving is doing some of these things? We should not be wasting food and yet we are saying we do not get enough food. 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."
}