Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (Ckrc)
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CONSTITUTION OF KENYA REVIEW COMMISSION (CKRC) VERBATIM REPORT OF CONSTITUENCY PUBLIC HEARINGS, EGERTON NJORO CAMPUS CONSTITUENCY, HELD AT (KILIMO HALL) ON 16TH JULY 2002 CONSTITUENCY PUBLIC HEARINGS, EGERTON NJORO CAMPUS CONSTITUENCY, HELD AT KILIMO HALL ON 16TH JULY 2002 Present: Com. Mutakha Kangu Com. Kavetsa Adagala Absent with apologies Com. KeriakoTobiko – at Kiligoris Venue. Secretariat in attendance: Programme Officer - Maimuna Mwidau Assistant Programme Officer - Joyce Njoroge Verbatim Recorder - Emma Kamunga The meeting started at 10.35 pm Herman Thogoto: Yangu ni kuwakaribisha na kabla sijaendelea mbele ninge muita pastor aje hapa atuongoze na maombi ili tufungue mkutano wetu wa leo. Inaonekana alikuwa mbali kidogo. Kama yuko mbali tutamuita professor Gathuri atuongoze tafadhali. Professor Gathuri: Let us pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this beautiful morning. We thank you for the life that you have given us. Lord we thank you even for our country. We thank you for the jobs that you have given us and various responsibilities that we have to carry out, as men and women in this country. This particular time we want to thank you for our colleagues here who have accepted to spend a lot of their time collecting views for the Constitution of our country. Our heavenly father we thank you for the wisdom that you have given them. Even the many other dear Lord who are in various parts of the country. We want to pray that dear Lord as there is so much talk on what and the work that is going on. We want to pray that your wisdom may prevail. That at the end of it all we shall thank you for the good job that has been done for the welfare and the future of this Nation. How much we thank you that in the past you have given wisdom and knowledge to those who have been with us before. The policies that they set up, the Constitution that they set up which has carried us far. Father we have been able to enjoy the peace that we have had. We look forward to even greater peace as you give us men and women of wisdom. Men and women who are ready to sacrifice their time. Men and women who are ready to sacrifice their 2 good time that they would be having like many of us, so that dear Lord we can have a better future. May you bless what is going to be said here and else where, for the welfare of everybody in this land, and the future children in this land and we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Herman Thogoto: I now take this opportunity Commissioners to just again introduce myself. My names are Herman Thogoto, I am the chairman Molo Constituency, Constitution Committee. Commissioners we are here in Egerton university today, as a recognition of what we have done as pertains to educating those in this institution and those around this institution. Much has filtered from here to us and it is (inaudible) since your gratitude to the entire community of Egerton University and we hope in future we shall have this help, this knowledge that has been filtering down to us to those people outside this community and as a Molo Constituency Constitution Committee we thank you very much. We would like to move on because I think we are late, but I would like to recognize the presence of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, I will give him this opportunity to invite us here officially, so that I can hand over to the Commissioners and we move on with today’s business. Welcome. Vice Chancellor: Commissioners Mr Kangu, Dr Kavetsa, the registrar, participants, ladies and gentlemen. I want to take this opportunity to welcome the Commissioners and thank them for having considered us as one of the venues where they will take views from for the process of the Constitutional reforms. I understand it is a demanding process, they have a difficult job to do. Collecting views from all over, different valid views and marrying them and coming out with something that will be acceptable to all Kenyans regardless of the station in life, regardless of the ethnic background and something that will serve all of us. You are welcome to give your views, I am sure they will tell you, feel free to say what you think should done. Whether you are doing it at individual capacity or representing an organization, am sure they will give you the chance and you will be heard. I think because it is not my day we don’t need to take a lot of time all we need to say is that on behalf of the Vice Chancellor you are welcome to the university. Carry your business the way you do, because I am sure you have a plan and feel free to take the time you need. If you require any extra facility please let us know and we will help you. With those few remarks everybody please feel very welcome to Egerton University and present your views thank you. Herman Thogoto: I now take this opportunity to hand over to the Commissioners who will give us directions on how we are going to present our views, and any other views we may have for the rest of the day, welcome. Com. Kangu: Egerton University and the community around the university, I would like to welcome you to this meeting which is supposed to be a meeting for the collection of your views regarding the kind of constitution you would like to have. Before we begin I would like to introduce ourselves and our staff, so that you know who is dealing with you. From the Commission Secretariat we have the Programme Officer, Maimuna Muidao, she is in charge of the Secretariat department. She is assisted by an Assistant Programme Officer Joyce Njoroge who will be rapporteuring. I think the other lady has gone out she is supposed to be the Verbatim recorder, she is Emma Kaga. We are two Commissioners before you, who are going to take your views, with me is Kavetsa Adagala, she is a Commissioner, she is also a lecturer at the university of Nairobi, in the 3 department of Literature. Maybe she should greet you a bit. Com. Adagala: Good morning everyone, we are very glad to come to Egerton University. We were also at Moi University in a different panel and collected views, very enlightening views. We hope we will have a lively session here also. We have not done Nairobi University yet, even Kenyatta University we have not done. Moi we have done, Marseno we have done, so we are moving through like that. I am a kind of grandmother here because half the department of literature are my former students here. I am a type of dynasol. Com. Kangu: Thank you very much mwalimu. My name is Mutakha Kangu, I am a Commissioner and I also teach at Moi University in the faculty of law, among other subjects constitutional law and human rights. As I said today’s function is your function for purposes of giving your views. You shall do the talking, we shall listen and record what you are talking about. I want to mention a few things that constitute the ground rules for a function such as this one. We take views from different types of persons. We take views from individuals. You can stand before us and speak on your own behalf as an individual. We also take views from representatives of organizations. You can stand before us and speak on your own behalf and on the behalf of the organization you represent. Whether it is registered or not. When you come before us it will be useful to specify the capacity in which you speak. We take views in different forms. The first form is written Memorandum, you may have a memorandum written and you do not want to say anything in addition or about the memorandum you have written. In that event, if you have something you want to go and do, you quietly walk to that desk and you hand in your memorandum, register your name and other details they will ask you. If you want to go, you can go, if you want to listen to what other people are saying you can stay and listen. We receive views in the form of memorandum, but there those who would want to speak about the memorandum they have. We allow you to do so, but we do not encourage your trying to read through everything word by word, because time will not allow us to do that. We insist that in that event you simply highlight the most important aspects of that memorandum. We shall read the details in the process of analyzing the views and we shall be able to know what you have said in the memo. We therefore in such circumstances give five minutes or so for one to highlight the memorandum. We take views in oral form. In fact I would like to inform you as Kenyans the greater the bulk of the views we have received from Kenyans have been oral. You come before us and speak orally what you have. We shall record both by writing and verbatim so that those views will be analyzed. People speaking in that format are given ten minutes or so to state their position. I wish to add that we have some discretion on the issue of time, because sometimes you see someone who has a memorandum that seems to be representative of a larger group of people, an opinion leader, we may consider giving a little more time.