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{
    "id": 865015,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/865015/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 181,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Baringo North, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. William Cheptumo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 50,
        "legal_name": "William Cheptumo Kipkiror",
        "slug": "william-kipkiror"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. This is a very important debate in the House. I serve as the Chair of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee. You referred this Bill before this Committee. We spent substantial time. We invited the public pursuant to Article 118 of the Constitution. It is now mandatory that we should subject all our legislation to the public to participate. Every Kenyan and institution in this country had the right to appear before the Committee and raise concerns on this Bill. It is very sad that Kenyans are being misinformed about the essence of this Bill. I want to speak to the country as I address this House. This House, through this Bill, has never and will never take the responsibility or the constitutional mandate given to Salaries and Remuneration Commission. Because Kenyans are listening to me, let me refer to the relevant Article of the Constitution. Article 127 (6) (a) of the Constitution on the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) states – and this is relevant in this matter - “127 (6) (a) The Commission is responsible for providing services and facilities to ensure the efficient and effective functioning of Parliament.” Kenyans passed the Constitution in 2010. What are the services and facilities alluded to? Why was this function not assigned to the Salaries and Remunerations Commission (SRC)? If Kenyans wanted the provision of services and facilities to be assigned to the SRC, it would have clearly been done so in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. It was not done. It was given to the PSC. I want to be very clear that every constitutional commission under Chapter 15 of the Constitution has been assigned its responsibilities under the respective acts of Parliament. This Bill is trying to realign the functions of the Commission with the new Constitution. One of those functions is to deal with the issues of facilities and services for Members. The purpose is to ensure efficient and effective functioning of Parliament, which is this House and the Senate. We had three whole days to debate this Bill. From the first paragraph up to the last Clause, there is no provision where this House justifies an increase in the number of wives Members are supposed to marry, or enhances the entitlement of their medical cover or provides vehicles. It is a creation of the Media to mislead the public and, therefore, set this House and Members against the public. I am now serving my third term. If this House was as selfish as they say, we would have passed this Bill a long time ago. We have passed all the other legislations for the other commissions. This is the last one. It confirms that this House is not there to pass laws to benefit itself; otherwise, we would have done so in the 11th Parliament. We chose not to do so. As we move to the Third Reading of this Bill, let us not be ashamed. We are not doing anything unconstitutional. We are realigning the Bill with the Constitution. The current PSC Act is not consistent with the Constitution. We are realigning it with the Constitution. The Press is a critical stakeholder in passing information from this House to the public. I urge them to be truthful. They should tell Kenyans the truth. I am happy that we have this chance to share our position on this matter. I agree with what was raised by Hon. Junet and other Members that, we are not here to pass laws to benefit ourselves. We are here to pass laws to realign the Parliamentary Service Commission Act with the Constitution. 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."
}