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{
    "id": 1341322,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1341322/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 592,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We usually tell those young people to look for capital and start their businesses, but it is not easy. To someone seated in this House this afternoon, Ksh5,000 might sound like a petty sum, or Ksh15,000 may look like loose change. This House cannot act like the Marie- Antoinette we used to read about in history. This was a very high-nosed lady who, when people were protesting, asked why, and was told that they were protesting because there was no bread. She retorted by saying that if there was no bread, they should have cake. This evening, this House is being asked not to be like Marie-Antoinette. Let us not look at a fee of Ksh5,000 and assume that it is affordable to every Kenyan today. That young person we are asking to look for a registration fee is laden with debts. They could be graduates who were educated under the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) arrangement. They owe this country money. Those people call or text us every day, requesting Ksh500 to feed their young families. So, this Bill sits well with them. We ask Members to see the need for us to exempt young people from the registration fees. Even in this City, we have examples of young people who have been given opportunities under NG-CDF to take up construction projects like building a classroom or any other project. Some of those young people got some of the work through exemptions. Hon. Temporary Speaker, the arrangement saw young people, people with disabilities and women being accorded 30 per cent of the jobs. Some of them have built excellent companies out of that opportunity. But there are many more in the millions who have been locked out because their companies are literally start-ups, and are people who may not even afford the fare to place their bids. I want to request this House to look at this issue, and not wearing the lenses of the children in our houses or the people we associate with. The Government should look at the young people who vote for us and who we seen lining up at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) to have their iris scanned for the promise of Ksh7,000. We saw them in their thousands. You and I would never line up in the sun for hours to have our data mined and exported to capitals that we do not know for the promise of Ksh7,000. However, a Kenyan may not be able to afford the little fee that the NCA is asking for registration to become a contractor. When we get to the Third Reading of this Bill, I shall be coming up with an amendment that shall require that if somebody is awarded a contract under this arrangement, then the registration fees can then be retrieved from the payments that are going to be due from the works that they do. Such an amendment will cover the argument that the National Construction Authority (NCA) depends on those fees for survival. I know that some Members will stand here and tell us that NCA depends on fees paid by contractors to survive. I will be coming up with an amendment that requires that if a young person who has a start-up gets a job in this arrangement, then their monies for registration can be claimed back from the job they do when they secure the job. This is an amazing amendment that we seek to effect this evening, and it will go a long way in providing meaningful engagement for the young people who, today, as we speak, are a ticking time bomb for this country. I finally end it where I started by notifying Members that each one of us here today is a minority in this country. A minority in the sense that we have a mega youth bulge, young people in their millions, energetic, full of ideas, but are not meaningfully engaged anywhere. Any opportunity that can accord those young people a chance to be part of building their own country should be very welcome. I shall be looking out for any Member who will oppose such a progressive proposal in this House this evening. It will be important for the people who elect them to see the chance that they are denying the young people in their constituency if they oppose this Bill. I beg to second. Thank you very much."
}