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{
    "id": 859400,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/859400/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 303,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Cecily Mbarire",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 78,
        "legal_name": "Cecily Mutitu Mbarire",
        "slug": "cecily-mbarire"
    },
    "content": "Parliament. This has been lacking. It is actually worrying that we have been able to pass legislation for the establishment of all the other commissions other than the Parliamentary Service Commission. So, I am happy to see that we have enshrined critical values that we will take up as the Parliamentary Service Commission and as the employees of this Parliament so that we can be able to maintain the dignity of this House and we can understand that there are certain things we must uphold as Members of Parliament as enshrined in the Constitution and we must be the ones leading by example. Let me talk about the need to support caucuses of Parliament. I am talking about this out of experience. I have been in several caucuses of Parliament. One of them is on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I have been a Chair of the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA), a very powerful and strong caucus of this House for the women parliamentarians. I have also been in one which we used to call the Parliamentary Network on World Bank. Those caucuses are not very well supported. I am happy that KEWOPA has support in terms of parliamentary office and in terms of free space but we need much more support especially when it comes to meetings and ensuring that the workings of these caucuses continue because they add value to what happens on this Floor in terms of issues, legislations and in terms of lobbying for budgetary allocation to key issues that these caucuses are pushing for. Therefore, it will be important that going forward, we can have Parliament actually second members of staff into those caucuses so that they are adequately supported in terms of technical support and they can do their work on a day to day basis and they do not have to keep running to donors for support. I really hope that we are going to push that amendment so that caucuses may become properly supported and recognised so that they can do their work because they are very critical. I hope that the chairman of the committee has heard this so that it can be part of the amendments that we bring on the Floor. Let me also talk about the support to the House leadership and also Members of Parliament. The House leadership needs a lot of support in terms of technical staff, especially in the area of research. More often than not, when you go to researchers who are already available in Parliament, they are too busy doing work for committees and, therefore, they do not give adequate support either to the House leadership or to Members of Parliament who want to bring Private Members’ Bills. That has made Private Members’ Bills very expensive because you are forced to look for external support which you have to pay for. You have to conduct public participation and it becomes very expensive. We are not seeing a lot of Private Members’ Bills finding their way to the House because of that challenge. I hope that as we think about the Parliamentary Service Bill, we will ensure that provisions for technical support of Members of Parliament and the leadership are clearly mentioned in the Bill. We have seen the establishment of the Parliamentary Service Commission and the qualifications of the commissioners, which I agree with. What is lacking is the process of removal of commissioners that do not perform. Those commissioners go there to support Members of Parliament and the staff of Parliament. Should we, as parliamentarians, feel that a particular commissioner or commissioners are not performing or doing what they ought to in our support, there must be a provision for their removal so that we do not have people who think they are there for eternity and there is nothing we can do about it. Just like other commissions, we need to provide for their removal. On the functions that they are asked to undertake in terms of welfare, I want to talk about the issue of pension. In the past, some parliamentarians who left this House were almost subjected to poverty. We now have a pension scheme. I hope that the Commission will 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."
}