HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 982218,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/982218/?format=api",
"text_counter": 88,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo (Jnr)",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "effectiveness of other Committees of this House. We need to have a candid discussion with you as the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the Senate Majority Leader and the Chairpersons, who he is in charge of. Are you satisfied as the Chairman of the Liaison Committee that the Chairpersons are doing what they are supposed to do? That is something that we can discuss somewhere where we will put you as their Chair to task. We have to discuss the issue of concurrence. I get the very eerie feeling that although you exercise this mandate somewhere in your office, we, the Senate of this Republic under Article 110 should get a communication when you issue a concurrence. That is what is contemplated in the Bill that we prepared with Sen. Sakaja. I witnessed a few things in the last few days showing that we are soon going to become irrelevant. First, you as the Speaker, will become irrelevant followed by all of us. The country does not have an Auditor General. This Senate should pronounce itself about this because it affects our counties. While we are discussing the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which might propose the increase of money to counties, how can we sit around and the Auditor General has not been appointed? The Controller of Budget has issued yet another directive, a small circular, to the counties that she will not allow withdrawal of funds without disclosure of three items. The governors now want to go to court. Ideally, the governors should have come to the Senate. We are becoming irrelevant every day. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am told, and my Chairman is here, that the issue of pending Bills is being dealt with at the Treasury. They are the ones who are approving who should be paid. Is that not usurping of the work of the Senate and the county governments? Who are we protecting? This is because I do not feel as if we are protecting anybody. Last but not least, Sen. Orengo and former Senator and the now Gov. Kiraitu Murungi did something significant and very historical on our elections. We cannot allow the preparation of elections to be done without our input. The way things are going and we are just getting one small paragraph in the reports of the BBI and others, sooner rather than later, and from my reading of what is going on, that Election Law amendments or anything touching on elections, which is a special jurisdiction of the Senate under Article 110, we are going to be by-passed. Call us quickly, spare some money and a budget, let us go and ventilate. This is because, first, we need to protect you because like I have told you, you are going to become irrelevant. We go to functions, and like yesterday - I am extremely curious as a Leader of this House - you only got a bare recognition. I should not have raised it, but those are the things that bother me. As the head of this institution, you should not be overlooked. This is because, if you are overlooked, the Senate will be overlooked. Sen. Kipchumba, Sen. Olekina and I can be overlooked, but you should not be overlooked in our presence; it sounds bad. Since we are good people, we do not throw stones. In fact, the way some of our legislators were treated yesterday by even protocol officers begins to tell me that there is somebody who thinks that we, the legislators, are useless people."
}