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{
    "id": 1193406,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1193406/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 131,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kibwezi West, MCCP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Mwengi Mutuse",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I join the rest of our colleagues in supporting the amendment by Hon. Mule and Hon. Gichimu to entrench the NG-CDF, the NGAAF and the Senate Oversight Fund in the Constitution. There is no gainsaying as to the work that the NG-CDF has done in this country. Members have eloquently enumerated the several projects that have been done through the use of the NG- CDF. As a first term Member of Parliament, I have perused the records in my constituency. One of the key things that touched my heart is that my predecessors have been funding over 5,000 children in secondary schools and over 2,000 students pursuing university education every year. As we debate here today, some of the children who were benefiting from the NG- CDF are not in school because the bursary funds have not been disbursed. It is, therefore, prudent of me, as the representative of the people of Kibwezi, that I support the NG-CDF to be entrenched in the Constitution so that the legal issues that have been tormenting this Fund can be dealt with once and for all. Secondly, I have been following the legal battles that the NG-CDF has been going through right from the High Court through to the Court of Appeal and, recently, the pronouncement at the Supreme Court. It has been clarified that the decision of the Supreme Court did not affect the NG-CDF Act of 2015 but rather the predecessor CDF Act of 2003. We, therefore, urge the Board to move with speed to disburse the Fund now that the Committee has tabled the amendment in the House. This is because the Act that created the NG-CDF has not been annulled. Hon. Deputy Speaker, even as we construe the law and the Constitution, Members, Judges and ordinary citizens need not to put more emphasis on legal technicalities at the expense of the public good. Even as we look at the NG-CDF, we cannot look at it as a Fund for a Member of Parliament. We have to look at it as a Fund for the people – a public interest Fund. When we say that the NG-CDF is illegal, we must also exercise our minds as to what will happen to the thousands of poor children who go to school through the help of this particular Fund. Without appearing to disparage the Judiciary, I know they are aware of children within their own localities whose fees is paid through the NG-CDF. By continuously looking at technicalities – the small issues as it were – and ignoring the public good, they actually make it impossible for children from poor families to access education. We are looking at a constitutional amendment, and the threshold is quite high."
}