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"id": 99390,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/99390/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Duale",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Livestock Development",
"speaker": {
"id": 15,
"legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand here to support this Motion. I think it is high time that the bare facts are put on the table. This Akiwumi Report is not only about salaries of Members of Parliament. This Report contains a lot, including even how to reform the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). This Report seeks a lot and compares the Kenyan Parliament to many other Parliaments. We should not reduce this intensive Report to salaries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think we need to put a number of issues on the table. What is the role of a Member of Parliament? The Report has suggested that one of the recommendations is that Parliament and the citizens need civic education. The people we represent need to go and design the role of a Member of Parliament. In my humble submission, a Member of Parliamentâs role is to make laws, deliberate Government policies, formulate public policy, pass the national budget, play the oversight role and to represent the people who chose the 222 Members of Parliament. Above all, the role of a Member of Parliament is to hold to account the Government of the day on behalf of the citizens whom they represent. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, before I go to the major recommendations in this Report, in my view, monetary rewards or the amount of money you pay a Member of Parliament cannot adequately compensate the heavy responsibility he is shouldering in formulating both economic and political development of this country. Members of Parliament serve with dedication. The kind of reward we should give to a Member of Parliament is not his salary but the honour and interest he has in that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this has never happened across the world; that you use public opinion to either reduce or increase the salary of an individual. If you sought for public opinion - if it is not in their interest - the world over, they will say that the salaries must be reduced. I want to put this question to the Kenyan masses; can we first define the role of a Member of Parliament? If we define the role of a Member of Parliament, then that alone will give us how much we can give them. The little we know is that the Member of Parliament is a jack of all trades. He moves from harambees to raise school funds to funerals across his constituency. Who said that an hon. Member should contribute to every Harambee in his constituency? So, we must, as a country, define those roles. I am sure the new constitutional dispensation â and I want hon. Members to say âYesâ â if we pass it, that Constitution will give this country what will be the role of an hon. Member, the senator and the governor. Today, if you analyze in totality, the environment in which an hon. Member in Kenya operates, I can say without fear of contradiction that nobody can compensate an hon. Member for what he is doing for this country. We should not cheat ourselves. This Report is giving a number of recommendations. It is envisaging a civic education programme to be provided to the people we represent on the role of an hon. Member, national organs of Parliament and Parliament itself. That Parliament should liaise with the national CDF office. It must provide a framework for disseminating information between the electorate and the Member of Parliament through the chiefs. This report is calling for a professional management system to be put in place in the running of CDF. It is recommending an outreach programme to educate the public on the role and job description of a legislator. Parliament is not part of the Government. Kenyans should know that we have three arms of Government and there are specific roles of an hon. Member. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you look at the package of a Member of Parliament, you need to analyze a number of both local and external factors. You need to look at the foreign exchange rates, the environment and the infrastructure under which a Member of Parliament works. You need to look at the global economic system. We have crunches! We had the economic meltdown and, in one way or the other, hon. Members are not living in a world of their own. They are part and parcel of that environment. When we pay the CEOs of top companies, especially parastatals, billions of shillings and the so-called opinion shapers of this country do not question, we are telling them that if people feel hon. Members are paid heftily, they just need to join Parliament. They should wait for five years, stand for elections and come to this House. If they feel they are earning less where they are, they should come and see. I think hon. Members should be brave enough to come and support this Report. We should not shy away. We know some of us appeared before this Committee and the same people said that salaries of hon. Members should be slashed. Again, the same people in this House are looking for bigger positions in Parliament in the name of either Whip or Chief Whips. If you feel you have enough, give a chance to your colleagues who feel they have no money; who feel they need more pay. You go out and say that hon. Members are paid heftily. I think it is high time that even the taxation we are talking about--- How many people in this country evade tax? The amount of money you get from hon. Members--- This Report recommends that hon. Members are going to pay their taxes based on the transport, the salary and many other items. But if we need to widen our taxation bracket, as my colleague has said, we need to move to the civil society and the NGO world. Do they pay taxes? We need to move to the churches, trade unions and big companies!"
}