Garissa Town MP Aden Duale bid farewell to the 13th Parliament on Wednesday with an emotional farewell address to the House.
Duale told the House that he will resign soon in order to take a cabinet position in President William Ruto’s administration.
“Mr Speaker, on my way I will hand over my resignation letter so that you can send it to IEBC,” he said.
He urged Parliamentarians to be cautious when passing legislation.
Duale admitted that during his two terms in office, he made mistakes in passing laws that were detrimental to the country’s independent institutions.
“Let’s also keep our independent institutions independent. Don’t make laws that will hobble these institutions,” he said.
“I naively did that at some point, but I have since learnt how costly it is to the people of this country and even to parliament.”
He urged House Speaker Moses Wetangula and MPs to revisit and remake the laws “in the spirit of the Constitution.”
He said he will be issuing his resignation letter later today to give room for a by-election in Garissa.
In his final message on the Parliament floor as Mp, Duale urged his legislatures to practice clean politics.
“Make sure you can sleep at night after all the politics is done. Trust me this is a House of politics, it can get nasty,” he said.
The nominee also urged legislators to protect the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), claiming that the program has changed people’s lives.
“It has built schools, hospitals, roads, police stations, and provided water and bursaries to our school-going children. We know how transformative it is. It’s unique to us and the only legislature in the whole of the commonwealth to have it in place,” he said.
According to Duale, the beauty of Kenya’s constitutional democracy lies in its ability to constantly negotiate to find solutions.
