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{
    "id": 82947,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/82947/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 349,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 190,
        "legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
        "slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I said that we have made a good beginning. I would like to congratulate the Committee for giving us two clean people. I am saying this because the biggest problem with reforming this country – even though we talked of zero-tolerance to corruption in 2002 – is that we let in non-reformers to be part of the Government which was supposed to support reforms. Therefore, I hope that as we vet appointments for the next commissions and committees, we are going to pay particular attention to the kind of people we are going to involve. I hope that those who will be selected will be people who have a record of not only standing for the good of this country, but who have not been identified with fighting reform. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also hope that we are going to give priority to communities and groups which have been marginalised. It is good that we have a judge like Lenaola, who comes from a minority community. I hope this trend is going to be followed as we look at other commissions, because minorities in this country have not had a fair share of representation. This also includes women and the youth. We continue to talk about “extensive experience”. What kind of experience are we looking for when a lot of the people who are changing this country are young people in the 30s and 40s age bracket? What kind of experience are we looking for? Are we looking for positive or negative experience? If you look at our politics, you will realise that a lot of experience can be tribal experience. A lot of experience can be experience about corruption. Is that the kind of experience we want when talk of “extensive experience”? So, we need to be very careful. Mr. Speaker, Sir, finally, many Kenyans are asking questions. Parliament is going to do all the vetting, but who is going to vet the Parliamentarians? Are we, ourselves, so clean that we believe that we are absolutely right to be the ones who will vet everybody else? So, I hope that the Electoral Commission, and this Parliament, will come up with criteria for vetting potential Members of Parliament. If we can lock out bad people from the ballot box, we will have solved 70 per cent of this country’s problems. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}