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{
    "id": 916975,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/916975/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 155,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. In the year 2010, Kenya, as a nation, decided to give itself a bicameral Parliament. The Parliament of Kenya is established under Article 93 of the Constitution. We only have one Parliament in Kenya. Article 93 of the Constitution says that there is established a Parliament of Kenya, which shall consist of the National Assembly and the Senate. The Parliament of Kenya is one, but it has two Houses. It is a bicameral system of government. The same Constitution has decided to give the two Houses distinct roles that are specific and clear. It was not the desire of the people of Kenya to have the two Houses duplicating their roles. That is why Article 93(2) says the National Assembly and the Senate shall perform their respective functions in accordance with this Constitution. Meaning that the two Houses have been given distinct functions to perform and deliver. There is history of having the Senate in this country. We are aware that immediately after Independence, Kenya gave itself a bicameral system of government. The Senate then had a role of protecting the interests of the seven regions and the minority communities which feared that they will be dominated by the majority communities. By then, there were two dominant majority communities - the Gikuyu and Luo communities. The role of the Senate then was to protect the interests of other communities which were considered as minority communities. The other role was to protect the seven regions and their interests. However, because the Senate veered from their responsibility, it got attacked by the Kenya African National Union (KANU) regime and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) failed to protect it. It became weak and Kenya became a one House Parliament with a unicameral system of government. In the year 2010, the people of Kenya decided to have again two Houses of Parliament, namely, the Senate and the National Assembly. In fact, if you want to understand the relationship between these two Houses, you need to first, look at the Committee of Experts Report and two, the HANSARD Report of the Committee that met in Naivasha to discuss and deliberate the relationship between the two Houses. There was a proposal by Members of the Parliamentary Committee that sat in Naivasha… There are a number of Members of Parliament sitting in this House who were in that Committee - I know of Hon. Millie Odhiambo, Hon. Kioni, Hon. Chachu Ganya and Hon. Sophia - and they recommended that we should have the Senate, clearly defined as a lower house of Parliament because of its limited and specific functions. 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."
}