Members of Parliament want the national government to take care of the funeral expenses of the first female Member of Parliament Grace Onyango who died in Kisumu last Week due to her distinguished career as a women’s rights defender.
In a statement on the floor of the House on Tuesday, Kiambu MP Machua Waithaka urged the National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula to mobilise MPs and the government to step in and assist the bereaved family to accord the ex-legislator a decent sendoff by extending the necessary assistance towards her funeral expenses.
“Honourable Speaker, in her death, we celebrate the life of a women’s rights defender and vocal advocate of the rights of women and children who laid the foundation for the participation of women in elective politics in this country,” Mr Waithaka said.
He went on: “We mourn the passing on of Hon Grace Onyango at a time when the House is seized of a proposal by H.E. the President to Parliament to amend the Constitution on the composition of Parliament as provided for in Articles 97 and 98 of the Constitution in order to attain the two-thirds gender principle and entrenchment of the National Government Affirmative Action Fund.”
“I, therefore, urge the House to fully embrace the proposals and support every plausible initiative to create a more inclusive society that will give women an equal platform in elective politics in honour of the contributions of the Late Hon Grace Onyango to the country.”
Mr Waithaka described Ms Onyango as “an astute legislator whose contributions to Parliament and its committees and the plenary were invaluable and her colleagues held her in high esteem.”
“She served as a temporary Deputy Speaker and a Member of various parliamentary committees, among them the Parliamentary Select Committee that investigated the murder of JM Kariuki in 1975 and the House Business Committee,” the Kiambu legislator added.
Ms Onyango, a retired Kenyan teacher and politician, was popularly known as a woman of many firsts.
She holds several “firsts” in post-independence Kenyan politics, as the first female to climb up the ranks of the political system, defying cultural barriers.
She served as the first Kenyan female Mayor of Kisumu, a position she assumed following the death of then-incumbent Mathias Ondiek in 1965.
She was also the first woman to sit in the Speaker’s Chair as Deputy Speaker; the first woman to serve as Secretary General of the Luo Union (East Africa), the first woman assistant commissioner of the Girl Guide Association and the Chair of Child Welfare Society, Kisumu District.
She was also one of the founding Trustees of the National Fund for the Disabled of Kenya in 1980.
She first vied for Kisumu Town Constituency parliamentary seat in a male dominated-race in 1969 and won, serving in three successive Parliaments (the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Parliaments) from 1969 to 1983.
