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{
    "id": 826446,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/826446/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 236,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Dennitah Ghati",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 856,
        "legal_name": "Dennitah Ghati",
        "slug": "dennitah-ghati"
    },
    "content": "belong to the Special Funds Accounts Committee. We deliberated quite a bit on this Report. I can say that whatever is in this Report is what we deliberated on. I really want to thank the Chair and members of the Committee. We know the role that political parties play in strengthening our democracies. I think that political parties should be able to run their affairs. As you may be aware, apart from the fact that Kenya has almost over 60 political parties, we currently have a system in Kenya that people think that we have two political parties based on the coalitions. We have over 60 political parties and each political party has a role. I am happy to say that even as we think about these political parties, it is good that the political parties funding is something that is inscribed in law and in the Constitution. When such a law is there, we have no choice but to follow. What I have seen in this country and from the political party that I come from… You know that I am a very proud member of the ODM party. We have seen situations in this country where political parties have to keep begging Treasury to release money to them. Why does it happen when it is in law? That is extremely wrong and we need to ensure that if it is in law, Treasury needs to release money to political parties in time. This is a very big problem. If you look at political parties, you will find that we have so many factors that we are taking into account. Political parties are basically supposed to bring everyone on board and the spirit of leaving no one behind should apply even to political parties to ensure that the youth, women and people with disabilities in this country are also taken care of. That is why even where I come from, we have the women wing, youth wing and persons with disabilities wing in the party, so that Kenyans who want to participate in political parties feel they belong to those political parties. As I have mentioned, I have said that political parties have a big role to play and we therefore need to make sure that we are mandating Treasury to be able to release funds to the political parties that we have. As you are aware, even when some political parties receive funding, we also have offices in the various counties and constituencies where our large population of the people who participate in politics belong. It is therefore important for me to ask political parties to ensure that they develop… As Hon. Mbadi said, we need to compel political parties to respect the law and to ensure that political parties also adhere to the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. The PFM Act basically sets structures and ensures that funding and finances are ably and well managed by the political parties. I also want to say that as we move forward, we have to ensure that even within the registrar of political parties - the political parties funding is actually administered by the registrar. When you give such a huge task and important role to a person it is important that this person who manages political parties funding is given a serious contract. That probably explains why we have political parties going to court or taking the registrar to court. The registrar does not have a permanent contract or a contract for some years to guarantee her existence as the registrar managing that fund. That explains why the former registrar was not able to control and manage funds for political parties. That is why she did not perform as expected by many people. I also want to say that even within our structures of political parties at the counties, the wards and at the constituencies we need to ensure that as political parties we are strengthening these structures. At the county level where we have the youth wing, I would even suggest that political parties at the national level probably release their funding to support those offices of counties. We can have a mechanism or a way in which funding actually goes directly to the women wing, youth wing and disabled wing at the counties where I come from. I also want to use this opportunity to challenge the Jubilee coalition. The Jubilee coalition needs to come up 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."
}