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{
    "id": 859337,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/859337/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 240,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Baringo North, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. William Cheptumo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 50,
        "legal_name": "William Cheptumo Kipkiror",
        "slug": "william-kipkiror"
    },
    "content": "Part IV deals with the clerks and officers. Clause 17 sets out the qualifications offered for appointment of the clerks of each House, pursuant to Article 128 of the Constitution. It includes experience, knowledge and understanding of the parliamentary practices and procedures. This will be coming out when we go to the Third Reading of this Bill. If you look at the other constitutional commissions and the Act of Parliament which regulates the same, every CEO... In this case we have the Clerks of the two Houses, who have no term limit of service. If you see the current law, there is no provision for the term of a Clerk. He serves for as long as he has not reached the retirement age. So, if you are 35 or 40 years of age and you become a Clerk, you are likely to serve for 30 years or even more depending on your age. This is because there is no provision for a limitation of the term. I do not want to say much about that now, but I will do so in the Third Reading. I want Members to read the Report. We will be making certain recommendations on that. I want to stay in that same Part IV, Clause 24 seeks to anchor the Office of the Joint Services in legislation, which shall be headed by an officer appointed by the Commission. The Joint Services is already in place, but it is not anchored in law. What we want to do in this particular case is to have that particular department anchored in law. Why? This is because the Joint Service really performs essential services in Parliament, which include administrative services, financial, accounting, information research services, litigation and compliance, buildings and many more. All issues touching on Members of this House are being executed by the Office of the Joint Services. It is only fair that we anchor that particular office in our legislation. Of course, without again doing it in a manner that will undermine the powers of the Clerks of the two houses because the two Clerks are recognised in the Constitution. So, even when we do this, we will do it in a manner that is not going to usurp the powers of the Clerks of the two Houses. This should be clear because there are some concerns already. People think that perhaps we want to take away powers of certain offices. We just want to anchor this because of the kind of role it is playing. Part V is on the Parliamentary Police Unit. This is a very critical area. Unless we have a unit that is purely functioning to take care of the security of Parliament...The current situation, as we all know, is that we have a small unit of the police in the next building. There is a serious concern that Members are not adequately resourced in terms of security and so on. So, this Part V provides for the establishment of a Parliamentary Police Unit under the command of the Inspector-General of the National Police Service. In this particular unit, we should have a command that is senior and higher and that can deal directly with the Inspector-General. This has been in other departments. We already have the Diplomatic Police Unit, Tourism Police Unit, General Service Unit and the Anti-Stock Theft Unit. So, we are not departing from the practice. This is already established in other departments. It will be a process of engagement between Parliament and the Inspector-General with a view to establish how that particular unit can function. We wanted to put it in law so that it will enable the Inspector-General to provide. Part VI is on miscellaneous provisions. Clause 33 provides for remuneration of staff which will be determined by the Commission. It provides that the expenses of the Commission shall be charged from the Consolidated Fund. These are the normal provisions for commissions. That goes all the way to Clause 46 which is on the powers of the Commission to make regulations. A lot of functions of the Commission, apart from the Act of Parliament, are done through regulations from time to time depending on the arising needs. So, we want our Commission to have that power to make regulations from time to time. The Committee to 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."
}