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{
"id": 1076722,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1076722/?format=api",
"text_counter": 467,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mwea, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Josphat Kabinga",
"speaker": {
"id": 13441,
"legal_name": "Josphat Kabinga Wachira",
"slug": "josphat-kabinga-wachira-2"
},
"content": "The Inua Jamii Programme falls under our Committee. As Members know, this is an important area where the elderly, both men and women, who are over 70 years of age, are supposed to receive money to help them to live decent lives. In the current budget, we have a deficit of Kshs4.7 billion putting 128,000 elderly men and women out of the scheme and disfranchising them from their peers who are receiving this money. It is painful when your neighbours are receiving this money and you are not receiving it. This is an area that I really urge the Budget and Appropriations Committee to look again and see what can be done to cover this deficit of Kshs4.7 billion. The Kshs4.7 billion is for the currently registered elderly men and women. There are many others out there who are yet to be entered into the programme through registration. If we have to sustain this programme, then we need to finance it continually and ensure that we are not causing grief to some of our members of the society. This Committee oversees the Department of Labour and Social Welfare which is also looking at very important areas including the youth, women, children, elderly and people living with disabilities (PWDs). It is unfortunate that these areas continue to be underfunded yet they are the areas that are supposed to look at the vulnerable members of our society. We continue to have them underfunded. The Youth Empowerment Fund was allocated only Kshs60 million to support the youth-owned enterprises, and yet the youth constitutes 60 per cent of our population. This is money that cannot be felt in any way. Another area that is underfunded and it is unfortunate is the National Employment Authority. This Authority has the potential to secure job opportunities for our youth who are unemployed in the countries of the Middle East, Europe, Australia, Canada and others. They have the potential to increase revenue remittance in this country by a large margin. Just to give a comparison, in the 2020, countries were able to have remittances of Kshs59 billion; Mexico - Kshs42 billion; Philippines - Kshs32 billion; Egypt - Kshs29 billion; China - Kshs83 billion, and Kenya, with all its potential, was only able to have a remittance of Kshs3.1 billion. Within the short time I have interacted with the Members of this Committee, we have been discussing why we are not able to attract more labour exports, and some of the things that we have discovered is that our country has not been able to place labour attaches in some of these countries. They have placed labour attaches in only four countries including Swaziland, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. It is our opinion that we need to increase our funding to this Ministry, so that more of labour attaches in liaison with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can be attached to these countries to attract more revenue. Those of us who are following up on what is happening in places like Dubai, only 13 per cent of the total population of that country are local people. The rest of the people who are in Dubai, namely, 87 per cent, are foreigners. These foreigners are earning a lot of revenue for their countries. In our situation, because of underfunding of institutions like the National Employment Authority that will not only help our youth to secure jobs, but also ensure that they are treated decently wherever they are, we find that some of the Kenyans out there are suffering. They are suffering because some of them went to these countries without the help of the Government, but through agents whose sole purpose is to earn from the young men and women. They are under torture out there. We do not have labour attaches who follow up on what they are doing out there. When you go to some of these countries, you find that, while other nationals are enjoying their employment having secured very decent employment in these countries, our people are not The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}