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"content": "[The Temporary Deputy Speaker (Prof. Kaloki) left the Chair]"
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
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"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
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"content": "First of all, the youth do not have the baggage. By baggage I mean those big offices, big cars, many secretaries, security and what have you, all of which the consumer and the Government for that matter, will have to pay for. So the goods and services will be cheaper to the Government. That is a plus to the Government. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, since all of us do appreciate that some of these goods and services we are talking about, like medical equipment come from a company, for example, in Sweden, there will be nothing to lose either way. Therefore, there will be a win-win situation. There is another draconian requirement, may I put it that way, that most of these organizations must put an advertisement in the local newspapers and dailies. Currently, there are about three or four dailies. These dailies are getting bulkier by the hour and soon or later, they are going to be as big and as fat as that one of the Edge of Australia, Melbourne. This is a newspaper which is about one and a half kilogrammes or two kilogrammes in weight. An advertisement pinned there, surely, is not meant to be read. Why do we not then put it this way; that we revise the procurement rules and regulations so that the Government website becomes the principle media for advertisement? We have 14 million mobile phones in the Republic of Kenya and more. All Government institutions have computers. Most of the chief offices have computers; most of these young men can afford at least basic computing even from their mobile phone. They can scan through and check those tenders that are forthcoming from the Government websites. By saying that you have to advertise in the dailies, truly very few people can be able to buy all the three or four major newspapers and work through to pick up these advertisements. Therefore, we need to amend the principal Act so that, other than advertising as a requirement, you must also be specific that it must appear in the official Government website. That is the way we need to work out Section 34 of the principal Act. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, why do we say this again? The same money which the Government is squandering in advertisement which I would estimate at not less than Kshs6 billion annually, can be used as a security bond for this young people. You will excuse me for that. The amount of money we are plundering with full three pages of advertisements that are never read, safe for a few, is already adequate. Therefore, we do not require additional funding on this particular aspect. I said earlier and I am repeating without causing any contradiction, that the Government, if willing, can follow the Malaysian model. In Malaysia, what they say and what they do is this; if a young man has invented a product, say how to bind a book like this or mineral water like this, the Government enters into a partnership with that particular young man. Since the Government has the funds, there is a specific parastatal or body that deals with that. At the point when business begins, the Government will win its equity position with time so that the young men or the youth for that particular matter, are left doing the business. That way, they have been able to enter into serious manufacturing in Malaysia. They have been able to convert people who are not sons of Queens and Kings, but ordinary youth to be millionaires and they are out there doing very serious business in the world. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, Mr. Eugene Wamalwa, with or without saying whether he is aspiring to be a President or whatever he wants to do, if he can aspire to give us this good law that will ensure that somebody in Ikolomani down in the village who has a mobile phone that can hook into the Government website and sees there is a tender for the supply of pens, who meets the requisite conditions of the order, with the help of those instruments we are putting in place, can supply and convert himself into a millionaire without necessarily breaking into a bank; that will be very remarkable. That is the essence of this amendment the way I see it. I do not expect it to get very kind reaction from the multi-nationals of this world, the sons of Kings and Queens. I do not expect it to be very acceptable by the sons of millionaires and billionaires of this world. We do not expect it to go well with the people who trade in billions. However, with or without their support, our cardinal role as Parliamentarians is three-fold; representing the people. The youth are crying. They are saying that they also want to participate in nation building. They have the brain power which is critical to any serious development. Our role is representing those people. It does not say we represent a certain class of multi- nationals or certain business people. Our second role is to make laws. That is the legislative function. We amend them, append them and repeal them. That is where Eugene Wamalwa comes in with this particular one. We must make amendments to accommodate the very spirit of our working together with our youth because as they say, old people must die, but young people may die. We do not want them to die. We want them to participate in the building of this society. The final function is oversight. That is later on when this Act comes to fruition. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I conclude by saying once again, that we have gone in all media houses, we have spoken in all rallies, I see some men at 70 years trying to call themselves youth because they admire the youth. However, the youth we are talking about here are those between age bracket of 18 years and 35 years. They are the people who are likely to be converted to paupers because of some legislative framework that we can be able to amend. That is why I sit by supporting this particular Bill wholeheartedly. Thank you."
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"id": 5404,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Olago",
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"speaker": {
"id": 5,
"legal_name": "John Olago Aluoch",
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I rise to support this Bill very brilliantly done by my learned friend, hon. Wamalwa. This Bill has already caught the attention of young Kenyans. Over the weekend, I was presiding at a hand-over ceremony after the elections of Kisumu Centre where we had over 1,000 youths in Kisumu. One of the things that they mentioned to me, very clearly, was this Bill. They said that they would like to see me support it with all my heart and that is what I stand here to do. This Bill will clearly meet resistance from entrenched interests, particularly procurement entities in Kenya. We expect that. However, I am sure that this Bill has the overwhelming support of Members of this House and it will be passed. We want, when it is finally passed, that the Government gives its support to the amendment and ensures that it is implemented to the letter. As we open procurement to the youth, one area that will pose a challenge to them is the area of appeals by disgruntled tenderers in the Public Procurement and Administrative Preview Board. In the operations of this Board, appeals are entertained but whether frivolous or not and whether they are meant to delay the process or not, the Board has no powers to punish or award costs against the person who has filed a clearly frivolous appeal. To that extent, this Board acts as a stumbling block to the expeditious disposal of the tender proceedings. While I support this Bill as it is, I wish to say that at the Committee Stage, I intend to introduce another amendment to Section 4 of the main Act to introduce the power to award costs by the review board against tenderers who file appeals on frivolous grounds, whose intention is, merely, to delay the process of awarding tenders. If that happens, I am sure that the Bill will support the youth wholesomely by ensuring that when they get their 25 per cent, they are not frustrated by frivolous appeals. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Bill."
},
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
"slug": "amos-kimunya"
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"content": " Thank you Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to make my contribution on this Bill. I support, in principle, the issue of preferences, especially when the preferences relate to the youth, the disabled or to the people who will not, ordinarily, compete at par with those who are already established in business. I believe that the Public Procurement and Disposal Act had already provided for those preferences. I have a slight problem with putting, within our law, the age limits and saying that 25 per cent of all procurement must be reserved for the people who are between 18 and 35 age bracket."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Khalwale",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
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"content": "On a point of order, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. Whereas I respect my brother’s contribution, is he in order to mislead the House that we cannot create a statute that gives room to preferential treatment to certain groups when he knows that the very Constitution of Kenya deliberately goes out of its way to create that kind of preferential treatment for the sake of affirmative action? Is he in order to do that?"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Laboso",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Deputy Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 63,
"legal_name": "Joyce Cherono Laboso",
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"content": " Are you in order, Mr. Kimunya? Is there affirmative action in the Constitution?"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
"slug": "amos-kimunya"
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"content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if the hon. Member had been a little bit patient, he would have listened to my argument to know why I have an issue I would like addressed by the time we get to the conclusion of this Bill. In principle, it is very good but we do not want a situation where it gets challenged from a constitutional perspective because the Constitution does not allow discrimination on account of age. Age is one of the factors where you cannot discriminate. You will recall---"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mrs. Odhiambo-Mabona",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 376,
"legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
"slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
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"content": "On a point of order, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Minister in order to mislead the House about the provision of the Constitution when it is very clear that as much as you may not discriminate on the basis of age, you can put in place affirmative action measures which take into account the marginalization of certain categories of persons including the youth, women and persons with disabilities? Indeed, I want to refer the Member to Article 227(2) of the Constitution on procurement of public goods and services which says:- “An Act of Parliament shall prescribe a framework within which policies relating to procurement and asset disposal shall be implemented and may provide for all or any of the following – (b) protection or advancement of persons, categories of persons or groups previously disadvantaged by unfair competition or discrimination.” This as read together with the affirmative action, clearly, the hon. Minister is misleading the House."
},
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"id": 5410,
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"text_counter": 406,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
"slug": "amos-kimunya"
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"content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker that sounds to me more like an argument and the hon. Member will have her time on the Floor. What I was saying is that if you read the amendments as proposed by hon. Eugene Wamalwa; and I must congratulate him for the time and effort he has put in this, you will find that it is not addressing the issue of protection of people who have been marginalized. It is actually seeking to say that 25 per cent of all procurement shall be given to the people of his category. I think that is the difference. I am looking at a situation where we must be very careful as we do this law. I would like to urge that between now and the time we go to the Committee, let us not pass a law that will be declared to be unconstitutional when we have applauded and said that we have done a law for our youth. It is a very good principle but before we pass it into law, let us look at all the options and then put it in a way that it will not be subject to challenge because there will be many people who will be willing to challenge this law. I am saying this because even as we bring the amendments to the procurement law, I was at the heart of bringing all these preferences. We saw the changes that came to this House as people lobbied. What we thought we had reserved enough for our youth, for our Kenyan artisans and the Jua Kali people, instead of importing everything, was thrown out because it was challenged that it was discrimination. It was said that we were discriminating against one Kenyan; favouring one against another one, and I do not want to see this Bill suffer the same fate. I urge that between now and the time we go to the Committee, we look and see whether we will have the law being challenged on account of age because age is one of the grounds on which you cannot discriminate. Indeed, the reason we removed the age bracket for the presidential candidates, which used to be there, was on the basis that you could not discriminate on account of age. I wanted to highlight that bit. The other thing we also need to be very careful about is the practicability. Twenty five per cent of procurement in a Government Department may well be one procurement. For example, if one Government Ministry wanted to do its headquarters and there was Kshs1 billion to be spent, you would not say that 25 per cent of that building would be done by the youth and the remaining 75 per cent by another contractor. There are some things that may not be practical and we need to make sure that, within the wording of the law, we provide the flexibility where a task cannot be assigned to different people without compromising on the quality so that we capture the essence of the youth but without creating restrictions to the procuring entities; that they cannot move in a given direction because they have to split all the procurement. There has been a lot of debate on the youth and we seem to be equating the youth of Kenya to be synonymous with the poor. I have listened to hon. Mututho talk about the sons and daughters of kings. They are also youths. I think it is important we do not pass a law here that will discriminate against some youths who are in the bracket of 18 to 35 years old. These youngsters you see driving big cars in this City qualify as “youth” even if they hail from the privileged families. Some of us, like hon. Dr. Khalwale and others were brought up in the upcountry. However, we had to survive our way through. There are people who were born into privilege and they have everything. They will be competing with young men from Kipipiri who will be setting up small shops. Much as you are talking about the youth, the term “youth” is not generic. There are some youths in this country who own Kenya. We are talking of them owning billions of shillings. If we are not careful, they will take up all these opportunities. We must be very careful as to what we are talking about. We want to make sure that as many people as possible are given these opportunities, especially in procurements in counties. That is where we should really be concentrating, to ensure that all these procurements benefit as many youths as possible in the counties. The money that we spend on CDF would have benefited many youth if we had such a law. How can we ensure those preferences go to the youth who go through our youth polytechnics? They are the ones who should produce the furniture for our schools. We should not be sending out those tenders to people in Nairobi to supply them. We do not want to see suppliers from Nairobi coming up with all ready-made desks, when local youths can supply them. We do not want to see our schools full of very good looking desks, but the fathers of the children in those schools cannot afford even to buy shoes because all the money has gone to Nairobi instead of to the local fundis who would have benefited. This is the only way we can empower the whole community."
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