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{
    "id": 1256724,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1256724/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1023,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We are talking about digital hubs in our constituencies. The Information and Communication Technology Committee will be briefing Members on Government intention to establish Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Innovation hubs in every ward in our constituencies in the next financial year. As we retreat for the short recess, which I know many of the Members will retreat to do their proposals; as you engage with the members of the public, it is good to inform them that there are those innovation hubs in each of the wards, so that you devote, in your NG-CDF proposals and budget, a bit of money for construction and equipping of those ICT hubs. The Government, through the ICT Authority, has adequate digital equipment, computers and also ensuring that there is connectivity in those ICT hubs, so that we also help our young men and women in our constituencies who have no jobs to be trained under the Jitume programme. This will enable them to access online jobs, work from ICT hubs, work from home and access online jobs even outside the country. I visited Sot Technical Training Institute in Bomet County. I do not know if the Member of Parliament for Bomet Central is here. I was impressed with the kind of work, where you find students, 21 to 24 years old, working online and earning their $20 to $25 an hour and they are working right from their own classrooms in those ICT hubs. Therefore, even with the establishment of such hubs in all our Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutes (TVETs) in the constituencies, I encourage those who are yet to start TVETs in their constituencies to do so. I saw a number of Members during contributions in the Second Reading of the Budget and Appropriations Report pointing out that they have no TVETs in their constituencies. Please, in your NG-CDF allocation this year, allocate money. The Ksh10 million is required from NG-CDF so that you can get the counterpart funding from the Ministry of Education for those TVETs and establish those ICT hubs. They will go a long way in securing job opportunities for millions of our young people who are jobless. Many who are well educated and tech savvy will access online jobs. Allow me to inform the great people of Kikuyu that in the next few weeks, the ICT Hub at Thogoto Chief’s Camp, where a former chief’s boardroom was fabricated into an ICT Hub, will be opened. Kikuyu Town ICT Hub will be opened. Kinoo ICT Hub will be opened. At the Nachu TVET, the computers are already on the ground. I encourage other Members to follow suit. I want to lead by example. That is why I am speaking to those ICT hubs. I appreciate that millions of our young people are jobless. They can access jobs not just through the housing fund levy that we have set up to build houses, but we can also create online jobs where people can work from their homes. With those very many remarks, allow me to support this Appropriations Bill and urge the House to support it. Hopefully, at the conclusion of this debate, as we get to the Finance Bill, we shall all rise to the occasion. What we have appropriated in this Appropriation Bill is what we shall be financing in the Finance Bill. I do hope even the myriad of amendments that I see in the Order Paper will be towards the goal of helping the Government realise higher revenues, so that we also do not get deeper into the pit of borrowing."
}