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{
    "id": 990930,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/990930/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 133,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Garissa Township, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Duale",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "contribute. People out there think we get free meals. We pay for every facility in Parliament, including food and the gym. Nothing is for free in Parliament. The Committee did a Report to this House and noted that so much is missing in terms of service delivery. Consequently, the PSC resolved to develop and publish regulations providing for the establishment of a Catering Fund under the PFM Act. The Resolution provided that the money we pay will be deposited, accounted for and managed in accordance with the PFM Act and the relevant laws. In 2018, the PFM Act only allowed the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury to make such regulations to establish a Fund under the Act. The Parliamentary Service Commission did a resolution that there should be funds and the first one should be Parliamentary Catering Fund. It is the fund into which the money we are paying will be deposited and accounted for. It will be managed in accordance with the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and the relevant laws. At that time, the Public Finance Management Act in 2018 only allowed the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Planning to make such regulations under the Act. He is the only one empowered by the Public Finance Management Act and by law to establish funds. It was, therefore, necessary to amend this Act to allow the establishment of a special parliamentary fund, including the catering facility fund and to allow the Commission to publish the appropriate regulations on how the fund will be run, who in the Commission will run it, who will do the auditing and accountability. For those of us who have been in Parliament for all these years, we pay for everything, but we do not get the audited accounts. That is why the Committee felt that this is the reason we suffer poor service delivery. For this reason, this Bill proposes an amendment to Section 24 of the Public Finance Management Act during the Committee of the whole House stage, which we did in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2018. During consideration of the Bill, the amendment was passed by the House as a Floor amendment. It was identical to what is before the House in Clause 2 of the Bill. So, we did this Bill in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill of 2018. After that Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill of 2018 was passed and assented to, a case was filed in the High Court challenging the constitutionality of the Floor amendment on the basis of lack of public participation. This is Case Nairobi Constitutional Petition No.163/2019 by none other than my good friend, Okiya Omtatah and four others versus the Attorney-General and 11 others . In a decision of a three-judge bench, they confirmed that amendment, being a Floor amendment, which was not subjected to public participation, did not hold water. They said it is unconstitutional. What are we doing now? We are making it proper. This Bill was subjected to public participation by the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. The whole aim was to introduce the Bill to delete and replace the provision whose passage was seen to have been procedurally offending the Constitution. I chose to publish a stand- alone Bill which has been subjected to extensive and robust public participation as may have been seen from the Report tabled by the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. The reason of the Bill is to ensure that the regulations will be published. So, once we pass this Bill, the Parliamentary Service Commission will have the powers to publish the regulations. This will help us to establish a fund. Members do not know that everything we pay goes back to the National Treasury. We will have a fund, so that the money we pay for our facilities, whether it is the gym, the food and catering services, is put in one place, accounted for and is open to Members’ scrutiny. They can scrutinise and say that it is a huge amount of money and we do not want it to just be haphazardly managed. We really want it to be a fund that is managed well, with auditors and the Committee on Facilities The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}