Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 859680,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/859680/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 257,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13322,
        "legal_name": "John Kiarie Waweru",
        "slug": "john-kiarie-waweru"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I do not take for granted this opportunity to support this Bill. I want to declare that I support the Bill. It is a critical matter like this one that reveals the real mettle of a man. This is going to be a controversial debate. It is going to be so at this level of debating and at the moment we shall be called upon to vote. At the point of voting, the real mettle of the men and women who have spoken in this House shall be proved. The great Martin Luther King said that our character is not measured when things are good. In fact, our character is measured in times of controversy. It is for that reason that I want to add my voice in support of this critical Bill at this critical time in the history of this country. This is a constitutional matter. We need to look back and reflect upon the journey we have made since we passed the Constitution in 2010. Issues have been raised on how we shall achieve the two-thirds gender rule. Issues have been raised about how much it is going to cost us in terms of having the top up of gender in this House. In our short journey with this Constitution, we have made harder and more expensive decisions. I will single out devolution as an example. We implemented it with all the financial burden attendant to it. Hon. Deputy Speaker, it will cost 0.02 per cent of our budget to put in place the gender top up. That is a small cost for us to pay as a country in order to achieve gender parity. I am cognisant of the fact that in my constituency, 52 per cent of the constituents are women. They decided to elect me as their Member of Parliament. So, I stand here this afternoon as the women representative of the people of Dagoretti South. I know that whenever people of Dagoretti South are given an opportunity, they are able to choose between a man and a woman not because of gender, but because of what they are able to do. It is a constituency that gave us the first woman Mayor in this city. It also gave us Hon. Beth Mugo, who served for three terms in this House. Even when I vied, I did so against women and our people were able to choose not on the basis of gender, but on the issue of how well they thought I could deliver. For the 52 per cent of women in my constituency, I stand here as their representative to say that they are more than half of the team that we need to play in this game of pushing our country forward. As such, they need representation in places where decisions are made. Our country is a global leader in many fields. I see a great opportunity for us to use gender parity as one of the firsts that Kenya is going to lead in, in this region. I know there are countries that are ahead of us like Rwanda, but their leadership was occasioned by a very unfortunate situation. We are going to do ours the right way. We are going to give guidance not 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."
}