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{
    "id": 997258,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/997258/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 208,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Homa Bay, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": " They are in deeper consultations. I see two challenges. One is that we are in a situation where Members of Parliament who are in either smaller parties or Independent negotiated their positions in the committees through the Majority and the Minority parties initially. I do not know how that would be dealt with now that you embargo the Majority and the Minority parties. I sit in the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. It is only today when I knew that Hon. Murugara is not a Member of the Jubilee Party. I just got to know of it today. I know he got his positions in the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and the Committee on Delegated Legislation through the Jubilee Party. Of course, so many other positions on this side were negotiated. Maybe, we can take solace in the fact that this can be reorganised. More fundamentally, Hon. Junet now confirms – and we all agree – that your ruling looks at Kenya in a mature democratic state. In truth, we are still accruing democracy. We are very nascent. We are in a democracy where, as Hon. Junet rightly says, an Independent Member of Parliament is more ODM if he comes from Nyanza than Hon. Kaluma, who is in ODM. An example is Hon. Peter Masara. I can tell you that he can kill for ODM in Nyanza and yet, in the House, he is an Independent Member. By the way, Hon. Peter Masara is also in the Departmental Committee on Administration and National Security, courtesy of ODM. There is a slot there. Are we then going to say that there are some committees which, by their nature, are independent, knowing that we purely do not have independence? In the USA, there is somebody who was said to be so independent that even his wife never knew where he would vote on an issue. Nobody knew what he would decide. However, in Kenya, the reality is that we do not have pure Independent Members. The reality is that as people are already confirming, by the time we are approaching elections, based on the regions we come from, people like Hon. Ochieng’ will have to affiliate to ODM either directly or through the party leader. You know what they do during the campaign period. Independent candidates use photos of party leaders alongside their own to campaign and win. They take advantage of facilities and personalities of established parties. Hon. Speaker, that is a matter to be thought through. However, there are committees which by their nature, in my view, adhere to the rules and procedures. There are committees where an Independent Member cannot sit. Adding to that fact, in my view, we are not purely independent. I have in mind the oversight committees and their formation requirements vis-a-vis our nascent democracy. We have the Majority Party, for instance, having many Independent Members in a committee like Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The minority parties are deluded that they have a sufficient number of neutral Members in that Committee. But the reality is that they have Independent Members working together with the Majority Party to actually subdue proper oversight. When the House Rules Committee looks into this, the oversight committees should be out of it. Even some Departmental Committees are too key for an Independent Member. I think this may be defined. I largely see Independent Members and Members from small parties sitting in Select Committees like National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) or Departmental Committees that deal with sports, tourism and culture. There are core functional 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."
}