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"id": 1527552,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
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"content": "perhaps got the services of experts to come up with a Bill that shall give effect to the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution that has devolved museums to county governments and allowed the national Government to only deal with national museums. Some of the functions of county governments that have not been transferred for far too long, include national museums, libraries, archives and even roads. For roads, everyone knows what should be done. However, because of the control of money at the centre, we are yet to devolve or transfer the roads function fully to county governments. We had said previously that the national Government should be dealing with Classes A, B and C roads, whereas Classes D going downwards should go to county governments. The museum function has not received the attention and focus that the roads function has received. It has not received the attention and focus that the water or the land function has received. Museums sometimes document the civilisation of a society. Whenever you travel many a times, you find that nations have curated their natural heritage and history in museums. When you go to Egypt and land in Cairo, one of the main tourist attractions is the Egyptian Museum. I have had the opportunity to visit the Egyptian Museum. It tells you of the glory of the Egyptian civilization; a civilization that was perhaps greater than the Greek, Roman and Syrians. Sometimes, you will find that because history has been written in a skewed manner, if you do not visit some of these museums, like the Egyptian Museum, you will never be able to contextualise and understand the scale, size, complexity as well as the superiority of the ancient Egyptians. However, because they have curated all this, they have put it in a good museum, which attracts millions of visitors annually. Even the current and future generations will be able to tell or understand the story of the ancient Egyptians. When you go to Washington, D.C. along the National Mall, they probably have several museums. One of them that stands out is the Smithsonian Museum. If you go to London, they have the London Museum. If you go to the Vatican, they have the Vatican Museum. If you go to France, in Paris, there is the Louvre. When the Louvre caught fire, it was as if the heart and soul of France was burnt. When it was restored, President Macron invited other heads of state to witness the reopening of the Louvre. That tells you how significant and central museums are to civilizations or to telling the story of nations or societies. Madam Temporary Speaker, here in Kenya, we have the NMK and 22 other regional museums. Unfortunately, unless this is being taught in the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC), many typical Nairobians will not mention more than three museums across the country. The one we have at Museum Hill is quite legendary. Many children go there to see some of the remains that the likes of Richard Leakey and early anthropologists uncovered. If you go to Mombasa, Fort Jesus has also been designated as a national heritage. I was talking to Sen. Madzayo recently. He told me that he was quite upset that when he was there, people are still forced to pay entry fees. Over and above the entry fees, there is a usual e-Citizen convenience fee, which sometimes makes it a little bit expensive. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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{
"id": 1527553,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
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"content": "I have seen that Sen. Murgor has proposed a Third Schedule that talks about exemption of the NMK from payment of access fees, permit or license fees, and export fees for heritage research. I am not very sure what that entails. How I wish we put the entrance or access fees at very minimal to encourage more Kenyans to visit those museums. Recently the Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife waived park access fees to our national parks to spur domestic tourism. I think it was a public holiday. What was witnessed, particularly at the Nairobi National Park is that there was serious traffic on Langata Road because Kenyans came out in numbers and families in hundreds and thousands to go to the Nairobi National Park simply because the entry fee had been waived. If we cannot get rid of the access fees to our museums, perhaps we should have national heritage days when citizens can go to those museums. As I have said, the NMK here in Nairobi is mostly visited by students. If you come from a school in West Pokot, perhaps a visit to the the NMK is not an option because the distance is great and the cost is very high. So, you will find that it only serves metropolitan students or people. Many children still go through the education system without seeing what is contained in the NMK. This Bill, in giving effect to the Fourth Schedule, should see to it that the 22 regional museums are handed over to county governments. Nyeri and Kisumu counties have museums. In Migori, we have Thimlich Ohinga, which is a protected site that captures an ancient Luo civilization. These should now go to the county governments. If they are going to county governments, functions should be accompanied by funds. When we talk about aligning the existing law with the 2010 Constitution, it should be functions plus funds. We are allowing county governments to take over regional museums while at the same time allowing the NMK to continue managing or administering matters of national importance and national heritage. When doing division and allocation of revenue, we should clearly cost what it takes to finance the museum functions. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is not just the artefacts that are going to county governments, but also the human resource and personnel who have been sitting in Nairobi at the NMK. We need to be careful about how we delineate and transfer the staff as well as the artefacts to the county governments. This Bill refers to antiquities and protected objects and that has mirrored the existing legislation. I read somewhere that there are about 30,000 antiques and protected objects relating to Kenyan civilization and Kenyan culture sitting in western museums and private collections. There is a project driven by guilt, particularly from the western world. They took many items from Africa. In Kenya, it has been documented that 30,000 objects estimated have been taken away. Some are in France, UK and New York. There is a project driven by guilt and trying to run away from restitution, where they are proposing to use advanced new technology, that is 3-Dimension (3D), to print artefacts and bring them back to Africa while the original ones continue to stay in private collections or public museums in the West. That is completely unacceptable. We cannot The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1527554,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527554/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "take substitutes for antiquities and protected objects that were made by our forefathers. I hope that even as we prosecute this matter, we shall breathe some life into that project. The reason I got interested in this is the following: One of the antiquities was a traditional Luo headgear that was taken away around 1910 or 1911 by one of the colonisers. He took it into his private collection. Upon his death, it was donated it to the national museum. It is sitting there. Everyone knows who took it there and where that person found it. Now they are offering my community an alternative of a 3D printed headgear. That is completely unacceptable. I hope that by strengthening the functions of the NMK, and ensuring that we have proper regulations around it, they will have the legal basis to fight those ridiculous arrangements that are driven by guilt and that are trying to run away from the real story. It is not just Kenya that has suffered, but Nigeria has lost what they call Benin bronzes. Those are serious valuable cultural and historical artefacts. In fact, many of those collections are sitting in British and New York museums. Some of them are at the Smithsonian Institution. If you go to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, you will find an elaborate collection of Benin bronzes from Nigeria being displayed. Those items need to be brought back to Africa. We need them back to our museums. We can only make a strong case when we have a proper legal framework, when we have museums that work, and when we have museums that are not dogged by the ridiculous corruption scandals that we have had from our national museums. It was a moment of extreme embarrassment when this nation was subjected to certain scandals that are currently in the courts of law. There were issues to do with payroll fraud. A museum is supposed to undertake certain core business, which is looking for artefacts, anthropological conversations, and tracing antiquities. Instead of focusing on that core business, the managers who have been entrusted to do so get into fiddling with payrolls and ghost workers running into millions of shillings. Even donors or research institutions that would wish to work with the national museums cannot trust a museum that deals with ghosts. I do not think that ghosts are part of our antiquities and protected objects or ghost workers for that case. We need to make sure that we professionalise that institution. We need to stop this issue of making political appointments to the NMK. Let us look at competence. Let us look at people with a proven track record in that particular space and not people who will manufacture certain scams just to line their pockets. In terms of archaeological sites, when we were in school, we were told about Olorgesailie, Kariandusi, Lomekwi and Gedi. We need to protect these sites. Two weeks ago, I was in the village. Somewhere in my village, for a long time, there used to be a stone-walled settlement that dates thousands of years back. Perhaps it was done by the Maasai, but it is still questionable because the Maasai are not known to have done stone-walled settlements. Thousands of years back, even the Luo had not settled in that particular area. We think that it was a Bantu settlement or civilization. That land had not been gazetted nor secured. It was private land and its owner sold it to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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"id": 1527555,
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"content": "somebody else who went and tore down the ancient stone walls and put up some shady"
},
{
"id": 1527556,
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"content": "mabati"
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{
"id": 1527557,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527557/?format=api",
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"content": "structures to act as hostels for students of a nearby technical training institute. This is why it is important to bring this now to the county government because there is no way the person sitting on Museum Hill would have known that there is an ancient civilization down there in a village called Waundo, or in any other part of the country. So, when this function is handed over to counties, we are hopeful that they will be able to go down, identify those sites and protect them. They will also encourage professional management, doing the excavations and making sure that we can get additional artifacts out of those sites. Madam Temporary Speaker, this Bill also speaks to monuments. My first experience to travel out of Africa was when I went to Portugal, a beautiful city called Lisbon, or Lisboa as they call it. Lisboa is famous for many things. It is famous for its pot wine, which is legendary. It is also famous for beautiful monuments. Everywhere I went, there was a monument of a war hero or a historical figure, which are kept well. They are well curated. The gardens around them are fresh. Adults and children go there play there. People go there to jog and exercise. Madam Temporary Speaker, look at the monuments that we have here. I cannot tell you any significant monument that we have even in Nairobi City that can act as an attractive destination for people. The ones we have here at Uhuru Park are celebrating a political regime that most Kenyans generally think did not deliver for them. Do we have monuments that speak to the history to the heritage of this nation? If we are going to devolve the museums to county governments, have we thought about the devolution of monuments? For example, are we pushing all the monuments here in Nairobi to Nairobi City County? Are there some that will be maintained by the NMK or the national Government? In some countries, they have appointed very high- ranking officers just to be in charge of monuments. I think in the UK, there is a royal appointee to take care of gardens and monuments because most of the monuments relate to members of the royal family. So, even in our country, monuments are supposed to tell the story of a nation, not the kind of shady things we saw in Eldoret when we were celebrating our record-breaking athletes. Then people went and crafted very absurd and ugly structures. You go to the West and things are made out of marble, fine granite or bronze. We have even seen gold-coated and gold-gilded monuments. You go outside the Buckingham Palace, the residence of His Majesty the King, the monuments shine, because they tell of the days when the sun rose and set on British territory. Of course, that is a history that is far gone. So, we need to invest in monuments. However, alongside a monument, we need to ensure that we have gardens and recreational parks. If you go to Jivanjee Gardens, I am not sure what you will find, but Jivanjee Gardens has now become a place for people just to discuss politics rather than to reflect on the history of this nation. As I conclude, there is a section in this Bill that I think should not even be there. That is a section on exports. Why would we even consider a situation where we need to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1527558,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527558/?format=api",
"text_counter": 314,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "export our antiquities? Part 10 of the Bill talks about export, conditions relating to export and gives discretion and power to the Cabinet Secretary to authorize. For avoidance of doubt, Clause 69 says- “A monument or an antiquity or a protected object shall not be removed from Kenya unless its removal has been specially authorized in an exploration license or by an export permit issued by the Cabinet Secretary on the recommendation of the National Museums under this section.” Sen. Murgor will help us. Why would we ever imagine that we can export our antiquities, protected objects and matters of national heritage? Do we imagine that we can take the Turkana boy to some Smithsonian museum? If there was a spear of an ancient Maasai chief and we found it, do we imagine that we can export it elsewhere? You can imagine if Egypt, having discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, that boy king, that there was a provision for them to export the gold and the jewels and the riches that were found in the pyramids. Madam Temporary Speaker, we will need to be convinced on this section on export because it is this provision that has led to 30,000 antiquities sitting in private collections in the West, and now they want to give us 3-Dimendional (3D) printed versions of that. This section of exports must be clearly thought out, but, generally, I support the Bill. I have seen that Sen. Murgor has also put in place a heritage tribunal, which does not seem to have been there in the original Bill. This is the reason why the Senate exists - to give effect to the Constitution. This is a Bill that every Senator should be seized of because this is a function that lies squarely in county governments and it is a responsibility for the Senate. I support and hope that we can rationalize the other sections, for example, the issue of exports to see to it that this is fit for purpose. Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1527559,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527559/?format=api",
"text_counter": 315,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Sen. Kajwang’. Since we have no other Senator wishing to contribute to this Motion. Therefore, I will call upon the Mover, Sen. Murgor, to reply."
},
{
"id": 1527560,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527560/?format=api",
"text_counter": 316,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Murgor",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I am thankful to the speakers who have contributed to this Motion. That is Sen. Mohamed Faki, Sen. Enoch Wambua, Sen. Veronica Maina, Sen. Olekina Ledama, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale, Sen. Omogeni, Sen. Osotsi, Sen. Tobiko and Sen. M. Kajwang’. I also would like to thank the committee for facilitating the introduction of this Bill. I look forward to the passing of the Second Reading stage. Finally, Madam Temporary Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 66(3), may I request that the putting of the Question be deferred to another day. Thank you."
},
{
"id": 1527561,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1527561/?format=api",
"text_counter": 317,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Sen. Murgor. The putting of the Question is deferred to the next Sitting of the Senate."
}
]
}