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{
    "id": 902070,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/902070/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 310,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Odhiambo-Mabona",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 376,
        "legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
        "slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
    },
    "content": " You. At the outset, I want to agree with Hon. (Dr.) Nyikal that we should oppose this Bill in totality. It should not even be based on the technical issues but on principle. We finished dealing with Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill yesterday and it took us a long time. Before that we were dealing with another Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill that had 60 pieces of legislation. In effect, if you look at what Members of Parliament are dealing with, we are not doing our legislative work as envisioned by the Constitution of Kenya and by the law, because each piece of legislation should have a given timeline. If you divide the time that every piece of legislation is given through Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, you will discover that each Member has only one minute, perhaps, to contribute to a Bill. Sometimes it is not even a minute. Where we dealt with 60 pieces of legislation, we had negative two hours in dealing with one piece of legislation. I must say that I have been a very concerned Member of Parliament. I actually think that Parliament is captive to some cartels that are pushing an agenda in this House. If you look at the processes and the substance, it is one direction. It is either something to do with tenders or it has something to do with control by Cabinet Secretaries. It comes in different forms, but what we are trying to do in this House is to go back to the Chiefs Authorities Act. Where the chiefs had powers, now we are creating the Cabinet Authorities Act through amendments that Members do not know. If you look at what the Merchant Shipping Act does, it is exactly that. In 2009 I was in this House and I brought several amendments to the Merchant Shipping Act. And I remember the then Minister came and told me he was surprised because he did not think I would know anything about merchant shipping because I pushed a women’s and children’s agenda in it. I remember it very well. Having taken so long in drafting those serious amendments, why are we in a few minutes trying to push a back door process that gives a Cabinet Secretary the authority to repeal that Act? From what we are doing, he can actually outside Parliament repeal a whole Act by declaring everything in that Act unlawful. So to show the Executive that this House is serious, we should bring this Bill down. There is a level of impunity outside this House and it is creeping into this House. People are used to corrupt ways. We are now getting degrees corruptly. You can just sit in this House and say ‘pinky, pinky, ponky’ and you have a PhD. I go in that direction, one year from now I can be a medical doctor. We will not allow the country to go in that direction. When we talk about the legal profession, if you look at what the Kenya School of Law seeks to do, we go through university and get a degree. The people proposing this, why do they not ask themselves: Were we outrageous to do a degree and then do a diploma? Why is it structured that way? If the 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."
}