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{
    "id": 1106307,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1106307/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 196,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Wilson Sossion",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13171,
        "legal_name": "wilson sossion",
        "slug": "wilson-sossion"
    },
    "content": "Malaysia’s economy in a very tremendous way. Labour availability is beyond the existing population to an extent that Malaysia is importing labour in large numbers from Philippines, India and Singapore. Kenya’s economy has the potential to create jobs for all the citizens and even employ people from elsewhere. As I support this Bill, I would wish to remind the House of the provision of Article 54 of the Constitution. Our Constitution was optimistically written and negotiated. Article 54 says very clearly that it is the responsibility of the Government to train the youths and provide them with meaningful employment—train the youth, not just the youth, all the youth. Therefore, progressively, within the frameworks of Vision 2030, the national Government’s economic agenda, in line with the manifestos that various political parties generate prior to general elections, should be conscious to the provisions of Article 54. I also urge the youth, led by Hon. Keter and the rest, to struggle, lobby, fight and advocate for all the youth in this country to be employed so that they can lead decent and meaningful lives. The Constitution was not written in vain. The National Assembly, the Executive and the economic planners of this country should customise and endeavour to ensure that this provision is implemented. The Master Plan of Vision 2030 also talks of Kenya being able to produce the most competitive human resource by the year 2030. We should not only be having skilled labour within the country, but even exporting labour to other markets and other economies. The bureaucracies that have been created – getting a clearance certificate from Income Tax and a Certificate of Good Conduct from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) – are just semantics to pacify the youths who are not employed. This was never done before during times when there was a shortage of personnel. Those of us who were trained in various universities were employed even before we graduated or satisfied the boards of examiners that we had passed. What Kenya should be doing is deal with finality with the problem of youth unemployment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the other aspect of data is that it should be automated. As a country, we have come so far in terms of ICT integration in governance. Therefore, data should be digitised for all citizens, including the unemployed youth, so that it would be very easy to assemble that data and analyse it when there are jobs. This country at some point shifted the retirement age from 55 years to 60 without any good reason. It was an escapist strategy to run away from meeting pension obligations. This has created a logjam in the public service, including the teaching service. If we have 350,000 trained and unemployed teachers, what rationale do we have as an economy to push the retirement age to 60? There is need for the government to review the retirement age in the public service and scale it down to 55 years so that the youth who are trained and unemployed can be employed. I can imagine a teacher who graduated in 2009 cannot be employed because of unavailability of space. The unavailability of space is created by raising the retirement age. And it is not just raising the retirement age. There has been a practice in the public service where even those who attain retirement age are given contract extension. This is an affront against the youth."
}