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{
    "id": 868390,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/868390/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 66,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to support your statement. For sure, being the second year of this Senate, I think it is very clear that we have made a lot of progress to establish ourselves as the “Upper House”. Just recently, we were wondering whether the Senate is also becoming the academy of Parliament because when you see the kind of discussions that we have, the in-depth analysis and the insights, you can for sure tell that the crème de la crème of this society is resident in this august House. We owe it to Kenyans and indeed the whole country that when we talk about matters of referendum, we have to insist and ensure that the Senate becomes the House of revision and reason where people come to look at what is happening because the National Assembly is nothing more than a three-streamed high school classroom in my opinion. There is nothing much that can happen when there is a lot of capricious behaviour as to capture the attention of the media for the sake of it. It is just playing to the gallery. It is here that we look at the interests of the country. I am saying this because some of the legislations that were passed in the Eleventh Parliament are coming home to roost. A case in point is the Insurance Law that we passed that puts Kshs3 million as the amount to be compensated by insurance companies if your vehicle causes an accident that leads to death. That means that the courts can award more than Kshs3 million. So, it is the owner of the vehicle that is supposed to compensate the victim. If that were to be properly canvassed in this august House, it would not have seen the light of day. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we owe it unto ourselves to ensure that we push the agenda of the country. We have to exercise our mandate because if you look at the architecture of bicameralism, we have a lot of opportunity in terms of ensuring that we oversight the counties. Nothing precludes us from making our matters heard and known on all that concerns the national Government and national policy because the national policy must also be implemented by county governments by virtue of that shared role. It will be important also to ensure that whatever resolutions we make in this House as we go forward are not seen to be an exercise in futility. It is important to ensure that we follow through them so that we do not just become a House where we make resolutions – like croaking frogs – where we just talk but nothing happens. We have an opportunity to debate and look at how we have governed ourselves so far and provide proper solutions going forward. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to say that going forward, we must ensure that whatever counties that we represent, including special interest groups, they should truly find their residence within this Senate, so that they are properly defined by the way in which we allocate resources and ensure that those mandates are felt by the person on the ground. I support."
}