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{
"id": 1341362,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1341362/?format=api",
"text_counter": 632,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
"speaker": null,
"content": "recommending its deletion in its entirety or it is proposing amendments. The Committee needs to clarify because, if we go by the Report of the Committee, then it is a bit confusing. Having said that, I have looked at the memoranda by the National Construction Authority (NCA), and some supplementary information, and the numbers do not lie. If you look at the Appropriations-in-Aid (A-in-A) that has been collected by those AGPO companies that are owned and operated by women, youth and persons with disabilities, in the FY 2016/2017, 2,063 contractors gave NCA Ksh56,258,000. In FY 2017/2018, we saw an increase in the number of contractors by 600 to 2,612, giving us additional money coming to approximately Ksh66 million. In FY 2018/2019, the contractors increased to 3,621, giving us approximately Ksh81 million in A-in-A. In 2019/2020, the contractors almost doubled to 5,408, giving us Ksh113 million. In 2020/2021, the number of contractors dropped by 400 to 5,092, giving us Ksh113 million in A-in-A. In 2021/2022, the number dropped by around 800 contractors to 4,213, giving us Ksh120 million. The scary figure is for 2022/2023, where the number dropped from 4,213 to 853, meaning we have the lowest number of contractors registered at AGPO. We have the lowest collected amount of A-in-A, from Ksh119 million to Ksh16 million. That begs the question: What could have caused such a phenomenal drop in AGPO contractors by such a huge margin? Maybe, that is what Hon. Gikaria is trying to cure. Businesses, especially the ones registered by youth, women or PWDs, bid for different contracts for an average of five years before they get any one job. More analysis needs to be done on those figures. But having looked at them, the first assumption I made is that you registered your business and got the AGPO certification five years ago. You made my Government gazette your friend. You applied for those jobs in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, but did not get any. You realise that you have been paying all those fees over the years, and even if I would get a contract in the fifth year, I would be required to pay all the outstanding fees for all this time. Therefore, someone will ask themselves: ‘Why do I still need to hold this Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) certificate and this registration with the National Construction Authority?’ I beg my colleagues in this House to look at this more keenly. I agree with the sentiments of Hon. Oundo and the Vice-Chairman, Hon. Rindikiri, that, that AGPO certification has also been a subject of abuse. We have seen court proceedings where billions of shillings have been lost through misappropriation by some people. We see people being arraigned in court, and they appear clueless. They did not even know their certificates were used to register those businesses. Even in cases where they willingly gave their details for registering those companies, you can be sure that they got a tiny percentage of the proceeds of that particular contract. When most of us meet people out there, and they tell us: ‘ Mheshimiwa, I would like your help in getting tender,” almost all of them will say to you that they have a youth’s certificate, a women’s certificate and a person with disabilities certificate, which means that we need to do a better job in identifying the people that deserve this certification from the rest that are using this certification to abuse. The fact that some people misuse the youth, women and persons with disabilities in this country to gain this advantage does not mean that we should take away the support we need to give the youth, women and persons with disabilities. The solution to that would be to fix the problem — abuse. I am sure we do not lack personnel, capacity or the techniques that we would need to employ to ensure that those contractors that are registered as youth, women and persons with disabilities are youth, women and persons with disabilities, and that they truly deserve them. When the question of youth comes in; most of the time, we confuse youth and youthful. Even Hon. Rindikiri was struggling to know who is a youth and who is not. But our laws are very clear that youth is anybody below the age of 35 years. Even if you do not have white hair like Hon. Rindikiri, and you are 50 years old and have taken care of yourself, you are not a 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."
}