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{
    "id": 1276745,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1276745/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 51,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Embakasi West, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Mark Mwenje",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1429,
        "legal_name": "George Theuri",
        "slug": "george-theuri"
    },
    "content": "public funds have been mismanaged and lost. Some of the institutions do not even have accounting officers. The respective management teams found it strange when we asked them some serious questions regarding the management of the institutions and utilization of funds when they appeared before the Committee. That was one of the things that we realized. Since the previous PIC was too busy, it could not dig into some of those issues. Education is the foundation of our children. The President has been talking about TVETs. We must ensure that the way these institutions were managed and operated in the past comes to a stop. Nobody has been holding to account the contractors who have been undertaking projects for those institutions. They have become a cartel unto themselves. The Committee Members will bear me witness that we went and saw where the Government is losing money. If we were to plug all the holes through which those institutions are losing money, I can assure this House that some new taxes imposed on Kenyans will not be necessary because we will save a lot of money by stopping these contractors. Hon. Speaker, please protect me from the Deputy Minority Whip. He is threatening me from the other side. I am sorry, it is the Deputy Leader of the Majority Party. On the funding that ought to go to these institutions to ensure the completion of some projects, as a government, we are losing a lot of money because of delayed payments to contractors. The delayed payments incur a lot of penalties. For example, construction works at the Ronald Ngala Utalii College in Kilifi County have been going on since the tenure of the late President Kibaki. We had one President exit office, another president finish his double five-year term, and we now have a third president in office since the project was initiated. The project is still incomplete. The project costs are piling up because we are not paying what we are supposed to pay as a government. Once completed, the Ronald Ngala Utalii College will be vital to our tourism industry. We must fund the project and ensure its completion, together with some of the other projects. Hon. Speaker, some public institutions have 95 percent of their staff components from one community. That is how we breed ethnicity in public institutions. These institutions will be training our 18-20-year-old children. How do we expect them to behave when the institutions they are in have 95 percent Kikuyu, 95 percent Luhya and 95 percent Kalenjin, depending on where the institution is located? We must make an effort to de-ethicise our learning institutions. Finally, I want to support the issue that the Chairman has raised. We noted that our public institutions will wither and die if we continue to send money to private institutions. We can talk about an institution like Egerton University, which is shutting down some campuses. We started funding students to study in private universities because public universities could not absorb all qualified students. However, public universities have since developed the capacity to absorb all students who want to go to public universities. Let us absorb all the students who want to attend public universities and fund them there. With those remarks, I beg to second the Motion."
}