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{
    "id": 1194308,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1194308/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 280,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nairobi City County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Esther Passaris",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Allow me to first, say a big thank you to my coalition party, Azimio-One Kenya Alliance for nominating me to the Pan African Parliament, and the august House for passing the same. I look forward to serving with Members who have also been nominated to make sure we address the issues of Africa in totality, and hold our flag up high. I stand to support the legislative proposal to amend the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2022 by Hon. Gichimu Githinji and Hon. Stephen Mule. NG-CDF, has done many good things. Some of the schools that I go to – and, I will point out a few in Kibra Constituency: Shadrack Kimalel Secondary, Mbagathi Girls Secondary, Raila Educational Centre and Woodley Boys Secondary have been built by NG- CDF, and are serving the community. If you care to look at what was there before these schools were built, you will realise the importance of NG-CDF when giving out bursaries. You see the large number of families that come out to ask for bursaries because they cannot afford to pay school fees for their children. The NG-CDF gives out over Ksh25 million in bursaries and also helps to build police stations. With the growing population, the police are challenged, and we need more police stations. While we look at this Legislative proposal to amend the Constitution, we need to look at how we can better enhance the NG-CDF. Let us make sure that the NG-CDF is used in environmental conservation to plant trees. We need more trees, especially in our schools. Let us also ensure the NG-CDF is used to build playgrounds for children in schools. There are so many things that we can do to enhance learning. One of the honourable Members stated that the NG-CDF does not have recurring expenditure, but they want to employ teachers because there is a shortage of teachers in schools at the moment. If they do that, learning will be enhanced. I also want to speak about the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF), of which I and all women representatives are patrons. Unlike the NG-CDF, the NGAAF is not anchored as a percentage of the national budget. The NG-CDF gets 2.5 per cent. We believe that they should get more than 5 per cent so that they can build more schools. We need to look at how we can enhance funding for constituencies that have higher populations. It is really sad to see a constituency like Kasarani that has over 300,000 people get the same amount of NG-CDF as a constituency in Lamu that has 11,000 people. Let us find a way to look at the population size as we disburse the NG-CDF. Higher populations should have more money. Densely populated areas do not have enough schools as they can only build so many schools with the funds they have. Looking at the transition from primary to secondary education, we have many primary schools but not enough secondary schools. If I compare the NG-CDF with the NGAAF, the NGAAF is not anchored as a percentage of the national cake. It was an accidental fund for women representatives. What happened was that there was Ksh2 billion for a re-run which did not take place and so, the women in the 11th Parliament asked if the funds could be given to them. Why did they ask for 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."
}