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"id": 1237109,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Musalia Mudavadi",
"speaker_title": "The Prime Cabinet Secretary",
"speaker": {
"id": 84,
"legal_name": "Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi",
"slug": "musalia-mudavadi"
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"content": "the most vulnerable groups. There are many different parameters used to determine who is needy when it comes to support. That is why support is targeted and it is not for everybody. It is not practical to have everybody on cash transfer. We specifically identify who will be a beneficiary of it. I want to say the message of county governments enhancing their own local revenue is absolutely important. In as much as the Constitution states the need to have revenue shared, I think it is important they also look at their own revenue sources and upscale them. Hon. Speaker there was an issue of State corporations. This is something we will bring on the table. I want to appeal to Members of Parliament as follows: when the Abdikadir Committee made its report on public State enterprises, at that time there were 262 State corporations, Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs) and parastatals. The intention of that report was to reduce the State corporations to 150 because many of them are a drain or big load to the Exchequer. Unfortunately, I have to report to the House that from the time the Abdikadir Report was made up to date, they are no longer 262 Government agencies but 350 plus. So, instead of achieving the reduction, there has been growth of these public enterprises. I want to appeal to Members of Parliament that when proposing their Bills, since they have a right to do so, they should critically reflect on whether it is necessary to create another agency in the Bill being proposed. As we speak, we are aware there are many Private Members’ Bills on the Table and in the pipeline. Many of them are still proposing the creation of other public entities. This is not tenable and sustainable. We have to rethink. A lot of the public enterprises we have today, we can simply amend some laws and broaden their scope rather than duplicating entities that repeat the same thing. This is a very passionate appeal to this august House to scrutinise Bills so that we are not in the habit of creating more and more State agencies. Otherwise, what will ministries be doing? Unless it is extremely essential to create them, I want to seek the intervention of the House to ensure Bills help in shaping the economy as we move forward. On the issue of junior secondary school, this is a big challenge. Hon. Members, there is a taskforce that was appointed by the President to look at the challenges around the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). This taskforce is about to conclude and submit its report, which will guide us on how to navigate this very sensitive aspect; the education of our children. It is a matter which is very close to our hearts and the soul of the nation. How will we manage this process and do the right thing? Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is that what the taskforce is doing now is something that should have been undertaken, in all honesty, before CBC was put on the table. Now that it is with us we cannot afford to cause anymore disruptions in the lives of our children, especially as far as education is concerned. We can only seek your indulgence that when the report of the taskforce comes through, we have guided and well-thought-out policies on how to move forward with this programme. Hon. Speaker, on the issue of public debt and interest, I wish to reiterate that this is a challenge and we have to continue working on it. Many proposals will come on the table and I do not want to pre-empt. I want Kenyans and Parliament to appreciate that, as a nation, it is not in our interest to default on any of our obligations. They are sovereign obligations that we have no intentions of defaulting, but we will have to take very tough measures along the way as we move forward. If we get to the stage where we may have to have a conversation with some of our creditors, then we shall do so in a transparent manner. It has to be done in a way that will be beneficial to Kenyans in the sense of helping us ease the very stiff fiscal condition that we have been talking about. I think I have fairly exhausted a number of the issues."
}