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{
"id": 928807,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/928807/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Ugenya, MDG",
"speaker_title": "Hon. David Ochieng’",
"speaker": {
"id": 2955,
"legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
"slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
},
"content": "institute to train the directors continually. Hon. Deputy Speaker, you are a lawyer and you know what we go through every year. Every year, as lawyers, we must go through what we call continuous legal education. We are asking for the same for directors that once you are appointed in the three years you are serving, every year, you go through corporate governance education, so that you can understand how institutions are run. You are able to know the emerging trends and ways of running public institutions. This is what we are looking for in this Bill. This Bill is not meant to oust the jurisdiction of the Attorney-General or the SCAC in the role of directors. Secondly, it is not meant to oust the powers of the corporate governance society in this country from doing what they do, but what we want to do is to ensure that our entities, be it Kenya Airways, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), be it the small ones like the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) or the ones created by the county governments and the water resources boards, are run in the right way. We cannot have a country where boards are places for resting people who are tired, resting retirees or ensuring that anybody who does not have a job is put into some board somewhere. This cannot be the way we run our much priced entities. If you have the Geothermal Development Company (GDC), and you want it to produce good geothermal power, then you must make sure that in that board, we have guys who understand what is done in that institution. If we want to ensure that we connect the whole country with electricity, we must ensure that the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) and the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO) have boards that understand what happens in those areas. If we want to ensure that we are doing proper housing, we must ensure that the housing authorities in this country have boards that understand what they are supposed to do, but this will not happen if we keep on gerrymandering and trying to ensure that our boards are not being run the right way. That is why they become conduits for corruption and bad governance, and we do not get value for money at the end of the day. Efficiency and accountability are principles that cohere in our Constitution. These are things that we must learn to live with. In the early 80s when we were young people, through the early 90s, corporations were doing so well in this country. Everyone wanted to work for a corporation. I do not intend any offence, but if you are a Member of Parliament today and you are appointed to be chairman, for example, of KenGen, you do not understand it. I am sure you need to be trained to understand what happens there. If you are a Member of Parliament today and you are appointed to be the chairman of the nuclear regulatory body, you may not understand what happens there. You need training to be told how things work there, so that you are able to add value to what happens there. This is the spirit and the ethos that we seek to push in this Bill. I appeal to the relevant Government agencies, the presidency, the SCAC and the Office of the Attorney-General. I have seen the Report done by my senior, the Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, Hon. Cheptumo. I was in that Committee with him in the last Parliament. At that time, we passed this Bill and we said that this is the right thing to ensure that we instill discipline on how our corporations are run. If you look at the memoranda filed by a couple of very well meaning institutions, they are telling you that this is the way to go to discipline our boards. This is the right way to go to ensure that there is some modicum of civility and competency in running our boards. However, we are saying that this should be left to SCAC. The SCAC has no capacity to train directors. Once you are appointed, you must report and go through training to ensure that these things are run the right way. 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."
}