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{
    "id": 944497,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/944497/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 23,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Speaker",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "reports regularly or even otherwise from many of the Cabinet Secretaries, if not all. The House can, therefore, proceed to deal with them in accordance with the Constitution. I, therefore, agree with the position held by the Hon. Member for Kimilili that the Constitution envisages Cabinet Secretaries as the principal link between the Executive and the legislature. This is borne out of their responsibility to attend Committees of Parliament and regularly report to Parliament on matters that they are responsible for, as well as the fact that this House approves their appointment to various dockets and initiates the process of their removal from office under Article 152 of the Constitution. Hon. Members, over and above construing the provisions of Article 153(3) and (4) of the Constitution in the context of their substance, there is the second limb to it – that is the process of achieving the intended goals, which process is determined by the House, pursuant to the provisions of Article 124 of the Constitution. That is the Article that gives the House the responsibility to come up with its own rules. This now begs another question for me, which is: Does Article 153(3) and (4) also imply that the obligation by a Cabinet Secretary to provide full and regular reports to Parliament cannot be achieved unless the Cabinet Secretary appears in person before Parliament or its Committees? In attempting to answer this question for purposes of the business of the House, it is worth noting that other than Cabinet Secretaries, Article 155 of the Constitution establishes the positions of Principal Secretaries tasked with administering State Departments under their dockets. Principal Secretaries are essentially the accounting officers of the Ministries. They offer primary responses to any audit queries under consideration by the Public Accounts Committee in the scrutiny of national expenditure by Parliament. Invariably, responses provided by Cabinet Secretaries on a matter raised by the House rely on information collated by the Principal Secretaries from either their departments or the various agencies falling under such departments. Indeed, and as Members will recollect, a Cabinet Secretary is often accompanied to committee meetings by the relevant Principal Secretary and technical officers drawn from the Ministry and state agencies, who assist the Cabinet Secretary to provide relevant and actionable information to the Committees. The practice in other Commonwealth parliamentary jurisdictions supports the link between membership of the Cabinet and accountability to Parliament. In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, only Ministers are allowed to answer Questions on the Floor of the House despite there being Parliamentary Secretaries, who are effectively Assistant Ministers; and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries, who assist them in the discharge of their duties. In the Parliament of New Zealand, in addition to addressing Questions to a Minister, a Member may address a question to an Associate Minister within the limits of any responsibilities formally delegated by a Minister. Additionally, Members of Parliament designated as Parliamentary Under-Secretaries are mandated to respond to a Question on behalf of an absent Minister. However, a question cannot be addressed to a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. The fundamental difference between our Legislature and those two Westminster-style legislatures is that, in our case, the Cabinet comprises of persons who are not Members of Parliament."
}