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{
    "id": 826823,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/826823/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 302,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "OlJorok, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Michael Muchira",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13461,
        "legal_name": "Michael Mwangi Muchira",
        "slug": "michael-mwangi-muchira"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to support this County Governments (Amendment) Bill of 2017. This Bill is coming to cure some gaps which are in the original Act where the office of the deputy speaker in the county assembly was not recognised. We have seen courts pronouncing themselves in the case of Murang’a County Assembly. When the case was taken to court, the judge declared the position of the deputy speaker null. We also have a gap in the parent Act in terms of the appointment of the deputy governor. We have seen it in the Nairobi County. We do not have timelines in terms of the appointment of the deputy governor. In the case of Nairobi County, we are still operating without a deputy governor. This Bill now provides timelines in case of vacancy in the office of the deputy governor, where within 14 days, the governor has to appoint or nominate a deputy governor who will then be vetted by the county assembly and assume office. However, like other Members have said, I also have misgivings on some proposals that I hope this House will not support. For instance, we are lowering the threshold for removal of the speaker from 75 per cent to two-thirds majority. We need to ask ourselves, by doing this are we strengthening the oversight role of the county assembly or are we weakening it? In my opinion, when we lower the threshold, we will be weakening the oversight role of the county assembly. So, on this one, I would wish that in the amendments that we are going to bring, we retain the threshold at 75 per cent in the county assemblies because we know the number in our county assemblies are lower, so we should not at all lower the threshold of the removal of the speaker. Impeachment is not a solution so it should come as a last resort. We, therefore, need to discourage this issue of impeachment. We need to make it hard to impeach the speaker. I am happy that the proposed amendment is bringing in the grounds under which we can impeach a speaker. It is only under gross violation of the law. So, on the removal of the speaker, I oppose the lowering of the threshold. On the selection panel for the county service board, I would wish that the House looks at the composition of the membership of the board in terms of appointment. Like Hon. Kioni said, we do not need to give the governor the whole mandate of picking all the members; we need independent members in that panel. In terms of composition, I do not think in the selection panel, there is any mathematics to be done to include accountants. We can probably say a member of professional societies of Kenya, if what we want is a professional, not specifying accountants or advocates. What we need in that membership are professional members. The other issue that I would want to support is that of convening the first county assembly. We need to remove that role from the governor to the President. As it has been said, we do not want to devolve political power. It should be the President who within a certain number of days can convene all the county assemblies under a gazette notice. Save for those sections that I have pinpointed, I support the Bill. 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."
}