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{
    "id": 1341379,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1341379/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 649,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Endebess, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon (Dr) Robert Pukose",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "He has often been sent to the police cells and even ended up attending court cases in Naivasha. I would always step in for him when he attended fabricated court cases against him for defending his constituents. When he came up with this Bill, I knew the intentions were noble; they were good. He wants to assist the young, the women and people with disabilities, especially in this competitive construction industry where you find that even with the opportunities where we say 30 per cent goes to the women, the youth and the people with disabilities are not getting them. As you can read from the report of the Committee, the numbers have been dwindling. They rose initially, then subsequently, as people continued being in their sector and could not access contracts in the construction industry, the number has gone down. Somebody did not find the need to continue paying to have that certificate. Therefore, you can see that, at one time, the ‘A-in-A’ had gone up to around Ksh120 million and has now come down to 16 million. This means that when it goes in that manner, you will find that the numbers will completely dwindle in the long run, and there might even be nobody in that sector. The Committee should have looked at it in that sense during their public participation. There are proposals in their Report to say that we reject this later on. They should have said we amend. I think they might not have understood the concept quite clearly. Since this is the property of the House, I think when we go to the Committee of the whole House, let us bring in amendments that can improve on this Bill. Let us support it and make it a better Bill. I remember Hon. Johnson Sakaja, now the Governor for Nairobi, having brought a similar Bill in the 11th Parliament to enable the youth to access opportunities in various sectors so that the 30 per cent requirement is realised. As Parliament, it is high time we ensured that the youth, women and PWDs do not only go for low-cost tenders. That is because if you try to analyse the tenders within various Ministries to see what opportunities exist for the youth, women and PWDs, you will find that tenders set aside for them are tokenism. No serious tenders can help them make a living for themselves and be part and parcel of the economic change in this country. It is upon us, the National Assembly, to rise to the occasion and make sure that the youth, women and PWDs in this country access what they need to access rightfully within their abilities and not tokenism. Hon. Temporary Speaker, with those few remarks, I support."
}