Motion to bar Music Copyright Society of Kenya from collecting levies by Hon. Gudson Muchina.******** VERBATIM PROCEEDINGS FOR WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 18 2013 AT THE KERUGOYA CHAMBERS. (The chair of the session was Speaker. HON. Ann Wangechi Githinji.) (Clerks Omweno Ombasa and Samuel Kago.) The session started at 9.41 AM with a prayer by Hon. Speaker. Communication from the chair. We have LAP Trust Fund agent Victor Kithenya has requested that if members can give him fifteen minutes after the session. That is the only request I had this morning from LAP Fund Trust officer from Nairobi. He would like to meet the members. There was no notice but he requested that we communicate the same. He says he has come all the way from Nairobi and I leave it to the members. Motion. Hon. Gudson Muchina. Thank you madam speaker. I rise under Standing Order number 49, THAT Pursuant to Standing Order 49, Motions without notice, and pursuant to Standing Order 49, J, Motions made under Standing Order 228,4 a, b, which states exemption of business from Standing Orders not with Standing Order 94, which gives limit of time of a motion. Madam speaker I Hon. Gudson Muchina of Tebere Ward, wish to move a motion, THAT Music Copyright Society Of Kenya be barred from collecting tariffs/ fees from this county until the amendment of the Copyright Act 2001, to conform with the new constitution and the new devolved government dispensation to avert conflict of interest and also liase with the County Government on how our county will be benefiting from monies collected from our people. This is under sixth schedule of the new constitution part two section 1,2 a, and b, states on existing obligations to laws and rights. Madam speaker, Music Copyright Society of Kenya is a company licensed by the government under an Act of parliament of 2001 which has never been amended. It is a private company like any other out there for business. Though we appreciate their efforts in protecting artists on infringement of their copyrights, madam speaker I would like to bring to the attention of this honourable house that the society has turned our business people to be their cash cow whereby they are charging our people exorbitant fees even higher than the Kenya Revenue Authority which is mandated to collect taxes from us even by force. Madam speaker, according to the new constitution, Article 28, which states that every person has inherent dignity and the right to have the dignity respected and protected. This society and police are surpassing the dignity of our people. This is by coming to our people premises with the help from the police even without demand notices and intimidating and harassing these people. They even scare the customers and making the business see as if they operating illegal businesses. Thus portraying a bad image of their dignity. Madam speaker, according to the new constitution, fourth schedule part two, section 3, and 4 clearly states that issues of public entertainment, video shows and hirings, noise pollution, all these that deals with music performance are devolved to the County Government. Also part two section a, and b devolves markets and trade licenses to county government. It is with this reason that I urge the hounourable to save our people from exploitation by some outdated organizations. The County can also initiate a society for its artists to be protecting them on infringement of intellectual property and rights as well as reward our artists towards development of talents. Madam Speaker, the said Music Copyright Society of Kenya has not been helping our upcoming artists in this county; we have been organizing harambees to help them produce their music whereas this society has been collecting millions from our people. A case at hand is of a certain entrepreneur, who was charged shs.24, 000 as tariffs and penalty for one year. Another young CD hawker on a road side was charged shs.4, 000 which was way beyond the stock of his business. Madam speaker, as I stated earlier, this house has the right to protect our county business people as they are the source of our county revenue that will be used for development. According to the new constitution sixth schedule article 262,2-7 one states that all law enforced immediately before the effective date continues in force and shall be construed with the operations and the word shall be construed with alterations, adoptions, qualifications, and exemptions necessary to bring it into conformity with this constitution. This has never been done three years down the line part 2(a), with respect to any particular matter like the one before this honourable house today, a law that was effected immediately before the effective date, assigns responsibility for that matter to a particular state organ or public officer and be a provision of this constitution that is effect and assigns responsibility for that matter to a different state organ or public officer. The provision of this constitution prevails to the extent of the conflict. So the dignity of each individual must be upheld and the necessary modifications, alterations, adoptions of the copyright Act must be amended to conform to this constitution madam speaker. That is the reason why I urge this honourable house members to pass a resolution that will bar because this is a constitutional office what we can do is to bar them from collecting revenue from this country of ours until they make sure the Act is amended, and they conform with the new constitution because the work of collecting revenue is the work of the County Government in the County and licensing the businesses. Also madam speaker, this company, Music Copyright Society of Kenya is licenced by the government and there is liberalization. Another society can be licensed so when they are collecting fee from our people, let us know how much money they will be leaving to this County for the development of its talents. Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker. That is the motion and the mover of motion, seconder of the motion ,any seconder of that motion can also stand.the seconder of the motion I assume is in automatically in support. Let’s have the seconder please. Hon. Njamumo. Thank you madam Speaker. I rise to second this motion as it has been read and presented by the honourable Gudson and much as we are disappointed that residence of this County are constantly been harassed by corporate bodies that are a creation of this constitution. Madam speaker and honourable members, I find that as I support this motion a mere resolution of this County Assembly is not going to work. And because we have what we are calling the Finance Bill, if this motion would be updated to be a Bill so that it repeals an Act of Parliament that created this body, madam speaker this motion as I support would work so well and the implementation of any recommendation that this assembly would make on this motion or the consequent Bill that would be contemplated from the work and the spirit of the motion, it would be very easy for this County Government to enforce. So madam speaker I would request the honourable member, as I support the mover of the motion, he should think of upgrading this motion to become a Bill. And madam speaker for it to be prepared as a Bill it requires legal experts. So madam speaker I support the motion as of now but request the mover of the motion to consider upgrading this motion to be a Bill because to enforce a Bill would be easier and the Act that we would create in this assembly will be able to repeal the Act that was made by the National Assembly to create the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. Thank you madam speaker Hon. Speaker. Those are the assessments of honourable Njamumo. Hon. John Waruri. Thank you madam speaker, I rise to support the motion and also support that it should be upgraded to a Bill whereby, the governor would be able to sign it into law but before that one is done I also suggest that the relevant committee looks into this issue on how they are going to marry the National legislation and the County legislation so that we don’t have a conflict of interest. Thank you, madam speaker. Hon. Speaker. Honourable members this matter has not come as a paper and a report where we adopt this way or the other. It has come to a motion as to whether we support as it is or checked it as it is. Honourable members with those sentiments the mover of the motion… but before that ..yes honourable member. Hon. John Gitari. I rise to support the motion and also to request the honourable member, the mover of the motion to include the farmers who are suffering from brokers. Thank you, madam speaker. Hon. Speaker. The mover of the motion you can see the angle it is taking. Hon. David Mwangi. Thank you madam speaker, I also rise in the support of the motion and with a lot of concern of the constitution schedule 4 (2) on the devolved activities of the County Government, with a lot of concern this area should be left to the County Government. And it is worth to note there are much more areas that people are coming from other Counties to collect revenue in our County. Worth to note is the dairy industry there are those tax collectors coming all the way from Embu, without the permission or the knowledge of the County. Vetting and Control Board, these guys come all the way from Thika to collect revenue in our County so I support and request the mover of the motion honourable Gudson to take time and expound more on these other areas so that we can merge the different areas to come up with a strong Bill or an Act that will be signed by His Excellency so that in actual fact we can protect our people in the County, namely the farmers as my colleague is saying. The dairy industry all these areas so that we can merge them together but it needs all the spirit that is required, all the support of this house so that by the end of the day all these taxes will be left to our County and without the exploitation of our people in the County. Thank you, madam speaker. Hon Speaker. Yes, honourable member. Hon. Irene Gathuku. Thank you madam speaker, I rise to support the motion because I personally witnessed those hooligans when they were harassing our people last year and they were beaten by the community and the police were not protecting and they wanted to go to the police station and then they could not have anything to take to the police. So it means these people are coming here as they are coming and they are just hooligans. There was a time those people had camped in Kerugoya, they were about three guys who had rastas on their heads and since that time they have never come. If they knew they were doing the legal thing, they would have come back or rather taken those people to the court. Thank you madam speaker. I stand to support. Hon. Lucy Margaret Matheri. I also rise to support the motion by saying that, the Music Copyright Society of Kenya when it was being introduced they were to fight piracy and these people might be coming here in the name of fighting piracy and trying to get their dues from these people who are dealing with music. They end up terrorizing our people. I also think they should even as we upgrade this motion into another level we also as a county take part in what they collect. They need to be looked into so that they also leave a share with us; they don’t carry our everything in the name of looking for those people who are not observing their rules and regulations of the organization. We should have a say as the county and also a share of the revenue. Hon. Speaker. Thank honourable. We now go to honourable Murimi. Hon. Geoffrey Murimi. Thank you madam speaker. I rise to support this motion. As I support it I want also to bring to the attention of this house that we can see very clearly that somehow we are sought of incapacitated because of the lack of legal experts. It is my call, as much as we are trying to tell the mover of the motion to go and draft it to a Bill, you realize that the County Assembly Service Board show very clearly we need legal experts within our support and therefore it’s my call that the board expedite to see that we have the legal experts to assist us in drafting Bills. Otherwise even if we continue telling members to go and draft those bills it will be very difficult because we are not experts in those areas. It is my call that as much as it is important you realize that we need those experts within our need. Hon. Joel Wagura. I rise to support this motion. For one I have experience of how these people execute their mission. It is true that when they are doing or visit a town the first thing they do is to contact the police station around and in most of the times they harass our very own young entrepreneurs. They have been using their license as a hand gun to harass our entrepreneurs. The other issue is the mover of the motion happens to be a member of the sectoral committee that I share and I think some of the issues raised, the committee had some concern on the same and soon we shall be sitting to discuss some of these issues. I think we will assist him with in one way or the other in upgrading this motion into a Bill. Thank you madam speaker. Hon. David Mathenge. Thank you madam speaker. I rise to support the motion and bring to the attention of this house that these young entrepreneurs, most of them, have closed their kiosks because they are fearing these guys. They might turn up today and start harassing the way they did yesterday. I would urge this honourable to take immediate action. I can see the media people in the house so can they report to this people from Embu there is Inter-governmental Relations Act 2012, please let them read the Act so they can relate with our county government. This is a county government like the Embu county government and after reporting to the media lets tell these guys to continue operating awaiting a Bill to be brought to this house and enacted to become and Act of Kirinyaga County. Hon. Evelyn Muthoni Ndiragu. I want to support the motion and agree that this motion should be all inclusive of all Kenyans and especially citizens of this County who are being harassed by tax collectors, because it is not only one area. We should make it a law. If the mover of the motion would take time and also include everything it is a good motion that can be understood and help citizens of Kirinyaga. Other than passing it the way it is we take time and look at all the other areas are being mentioned and put them in one motion because they are all addressing one thing so that we pass a law that will help our citizens in Kirinyaga. Hon. Speaker. We give the last opportunity to the mover. Hon. Gudson Muchina. Thank you madam speaker. I start by congratulating my fellow members in listening to the cries of our people and bring to the notice of this house, with me I have the tariffs 2013 that the limited company, it is a company that is out to do business. They sat down and came up with tariffs that they are going to charge our people this year. According to this charges, the spirit of the new constitution says that any fee to be levied against any person must be subjected to public participation. When they sat down and came with this booklet with tariffs, they never consulted the stakeholders and if they consulted let them prove. Because these days we have people portraying that they have consulted stakeholders by placing advertisements in the news papers. How many of our people read the news papers? Very few people rd news papers and I don’t see how they did put these charges. All of them on the newspapers, there is nowhere our people were consulted. They have put very exorbitant fees as I stated in my motion, if we go by these tariffs we shall have no person in music industry business in Kirinyaga County because they are exorbitant. Bar owners are supposed pay according to the seats that in that bar. If you have fifty seats you multiply by the tariff of one seat then times one year. You find out that a bar owner, with ten seats will be paying sh.10, 000 year. Even the County Government licenses have not gone to that extent. Honourable members I am pleading with this house, let us pass a resolution that they be barred, they stop collecting these funds from this county until there are proper laws and proper negotiations between the county government and then and also the conflict of the Act with the current constitution to looked into.They be barred from levying from Kirinyaga County business people. Thank you madam speaker. Hon. Speaker. Honourable members we put the question the Music Copyright Society of Kenya Limited be barred collecting tariffs, fees from this County until the amendment of the Copyright Act 2001. However law demands that you first amend because the motion equally says this county. It is licensed by the government. However we proceed and put the question. As many of in support of barring the Music Copyright Society Of Kenya Ltd Company licensed by the government under Copyright Act 2001 from collecting levies in Kirinyaga County say ayes. The motion passed. (Applause.) Hon. Speaker.I have no other business on my desk. Hon. Jinaro Njamumo. There is still more business. The House Business Committee had allocated time this morning, for the motion on support for the needy children, madam speaker this is a motion that was concealed immediately we were sworn in this assembly to serve this County Government and it is a motion that has navigated its way up to now even when this County Assembly was preparing and approving the budget for this County Government of Kirinyaga, Madam Speaker , and it was conceived out of the cries that we received even when we were doing campaigns outside there and even after the members of this Assembly were elected. Every honourable member can bear me witness to the fact that we find every other morning parents lining up asking for bursaries for the needy children. Madam speaker, this is a motion that has all the intentions of cushioning our needy children especially those who are joining secondary schools from dropping out because of lack of what we used to call bursary. Madam Speaker when I was going through and consulting widely about how we put the policy frame work on this intended motion I realized that going by the past experiences when we pass a resolution I this house and we take it to the other side madam Speaker, sometimes we are finding very difficult to have such resolutions implemented. It is in this believe and in my wisdom therefore Madam Speaker. Am persuaded by Standing Order 48. First withdraw this motion of support of the needy children because a mere resolution of this County Assembly may not work when it comes to the implementation of what we need to do. The objects of this motion, if they can be given to an expert and again instead of making a resolution that will not be implemented on other side I believe an expert can be able to condense the objects and intentions of this motion to make it a Bill and when it comes to enforce a Bill Madam Speaker it becomes easier for us because a resolution will require a political backing for it to be implemented. I would request this honourable house and honourable members that for us now to be able to provide our children with bursary, because they need it so much they ask and this honourable house ask the County Assembly Service Board because pre qualification tenders have been open and maybe and I believe at this level, the evaluation has been done. We source the services of legal experts in the same breath we have talked about that other motion. So that immediately Madam Speaker and honourable members within the shortest time possible, we are able now to put a policy framework of this motion and have it legally tabled and prepared as a Bill before this County Assembly Madam Speaker. It is painful at this time madam speaker for me as a mover of this motion to withdraw and going with past experience. It is imperative Madam Speaker that this motion is taken to an expert so that next time when we come to give money to our needy children we do not have cases of some members of the Executive and in particular the CEC members like it has been noticed in the sector of Education. The Committee of Education they prepare a form to be filled by those who are needy or those who need this bursary only later on to realize alterations have been made. So we need a legal framework madam speaker for this motion to stand and to be strong and to save the MCA’s from running up and down following people so that bursaries are given to our needy children. I stand assured by Standing Order 48, withdraw this motion and very soon we urge the County Assembly Service Board to source services of a legal expert so that this headache is removed from us once and for all.Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker. That motion stands withdrawn and to add that, the pre qualifications are through and now all necessary staff basically the experts are available. If you consult the office of our clerk should be able to guide you on the necessary experts. And that is not only for those motions but even in your own respective committees will have right to engage an expert as a committee and on issues that we feel that we do not have that capacity and it is not only legal, it is for all round experts should be engaged through the office of the Clerk. He has them. That is bringing us to the end of our morning session and the other motion I have is for honourable Njui. Hon. Gitari Milika. I want to move a notice for motion under Standing Order49, motion which maybe moved without a notice. Section C, THAT the County Assembly does dissolve itself into a committee of the whole house in case there is a motion that can be discussed. Madam Speaker, we have a motion that comes from Kirinyaga County Assembly Service Board members. I request the house to adjourn to discuss this motion of our offices in the wards. Madam Speaker, all members have problems in the wards because they lack deposits. So am requesting the honourable house to be allocated time by your office to discuss so that we can see how we can solve the problems of our wards. Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker. I do agree that is very thoughtful. Hon. John Waruri. I stand to support Hon. Gitari under motions which that can be moved without notice Section 49(C) which states clearly that motions of the County Assembly do dissolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to discuss a very important matter on ward offices and I support and wish to request Honourable Madam Speaker that you leave the floor and dissolve ourselves to the committee of the whole house to discuss this report on this ward offices. Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker. Yes I like the spirit. Hon. Gudson Muchina. I rise in the support of the motion but in due respect I would like this house to note one thing that according to our privileges, we are feeling dishonoured when we still don’t have the identification badges. This morning one of us honourable has been arrested at Samson Corner. Hon. Speaker. Kindly give us the name. Hon. Gudson Muchina. The leader minority. He was arrested due to the inspections of the vehicles and it is embarrassing for a honourable member be arrested and be taken to court by the askaris due to lack of the identification badge. So Madam Speaker, we would the respective body take charge immediately so that the privileges of honourable will be taken in to consideration. Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker. That although we were at Milika’s issue it is good we recognize the issue raised.And in line with that concern of that honourable member we are saying that yesterday the badge samples were approved, the stickers and the complementary letters have been approved for each and every member and indeed they are going into the details that you are honourable members of Kirinyaga County, leader of majority all those details are in it and it is the supplier who has not brought. But samples have been approved for everything including new business cards and the land lines for the websites and E-Mails. All that concern has been taken into account. Do not deviate from the issue of public interest of the ward offices and I believe that every member has a proposed guide line of one of our Service Board member Muchina and am only concerned I don’t know, the chair is not in the house, can the house propose the chair on his absence. Gudson will chair in absence of deputy speaker and I don’t know whether the members elect would like to release the nominated members, by consensus. You want them in or we release them? You want them stay that is by consensus. Proceed on the issue of the Ward offices. (House reverted into a committee of the whole house and speaker escorted out by the Serjeant at arms.) Obtain official record from the Clerk.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:34:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015