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We've been busy beavers this week.
1) The Bills Status page has been updated. As you can see Parliament has been more active that in past sessions having passed 6 bills already. Perhaps the threat of 2007 elections is making them nervous. In any event, it's good to see some work getting done.
2) The Ministries page has been updated to include the Shadow Cabinet, click here for an example.
3) We were hoping to have the voting records of MPs up this week, but in a case of "we-just-can't-believe-this-s***" we've found out that:
"Voting in parliament is called Division but MP's don't go for division when they are passing a Bill. They mostly use "Ayes" for those supporting and "noes" for those opposing when deciding on a certain clause. They only go for division when there is a crucial vote like when to adjourn/recess or on a contentious item like what they did during the constitution or when they cannot decide on which side was loudest in shouting "aye' or"No".
So basically, unless a Bill is contentious we have no way of finding out who voted for what and Kenyans cannot hold their MPs to task based on their voting records in Parliament. This is very very disappointing (and incredulous!). Nevertheless, that won't deter us from hounding out the division voting records.
4) We can now confirm that we will be receiving the order papers on a regular basis (thanks S!). We are busy working hard to find a way to get the papers up systematically for easier navigation and cross-linking with other parts of the site e.g. the questions asked section. Hopefully, from next week the process will be finalized and you can visit Mzalendo on a daily basis to find out what's coming up in Parliament.
5) Coming soon if everything works out as planned...regular reporting on Parliament's sessions; updated MP profiles for those MPs whose profiles are missing; most of the Bills that are being presented in this session.
6) Wasting no time, the new MPs are in our database. Take some time and play around with the MP Query Page. Try for yourself and see how many MPs we have that are under 30. Or Over 70.
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