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{
    "id": 868712,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/868712/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 143,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Luanda, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Christopher Omulele",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2145,
        "legal_name": "Christopher Omulele",
        "slug": "christopher-omulele"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to speak to this very important Bill. For me, the purpose of this Bill is actually to bring certainty to services and products that are put out in the market in Kenya and also in the international market by manufacturers from Kenya, and also for those products that come into our country to give the consumers of such services and products certainty that those products are exactly what they are. As my brothers who have spoken before me have said, the purpose of this Bill is to give assurance that the measure, taste or efficacy of a product or service is exactly as it is stated. This Bill has had a long time in coming before this House today. The idea about coming up with such a Bill actually was mooted around the year 2000. That is when, for the first time, the Kenya National Bureau of Standards realised that even as it undertook its role in enforcing standards and coming up with standards of measure and efficacy in this country, it also needed to have a body which could accredit its own services and laboratories within which it undertook those services. So, the Kenya National Bureau of Standards, from 2009 to this year, was actually carrying out the dual role of reassurance and setting up standards and also accrediting other bodies that wished to carry out similar services that the Kenya National Bureau of Standards was offering within the Kenyan sphere of the world. It is at that time that Legal Notice No. 164 was drafted. It is a fact today which I want to just inform my colleagues who have spoken before me; that we are not actually formatting a new body today. The Kenya Accreditation Service today exists and has been in existence from the year 2009, but it has existed as a legal body emanating from Legal Notice No. 164 of 2009. It has been operating as such from the mercy of the President. However, it is a body that exists and it has been carrying out those services. What we are doing today is basically coming up with an Act of Parliament to ground it more as a statutory body within the laws of Kenya and such, give it more strength to operate and to know that it will always be in existence. Having said that and the purpose for which we need this Kenya Accreditation Service, I wish to add that it is important for us, as a House, to find finance for this very important service that is being offered today, and that will be offered by this statutory body that we are now creating, taking into account that, as originally founded, it was a function that was being carried out by Kenya National Bureau of Standards under the Standards Act Chapter 496 of the Laws of Kenya. Under that Act, the Kenya National Bureau of Standards was receiving finances to carry out those services. As presently constituted, that financing continues to go to the Kenya National Bureau of Standards under that Act. It will be important for this House, the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning of this House to actually unbundle those finances so that the Kenya Accreditation Service as a body can have its own finances remain with that bit of finance which they will use to carry out the work of standardisation and reassurance of standards within Kenya. So, finances are very important for this and I will urge the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning to look into this. I am sure and confident that if those committees invite the current management of Kenya Accreditation Service as currently constituted, it should be able to give a way forward on this 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."
}