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{
    "id": 1439725,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1439725/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 153,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nairobi City County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Esther Passaris",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I stand to support my colleague, Hon. Naisula, for bringing this Public Service Internship Bill, (National Assembly Bill No.63 of 2022), and the Departmental Committee on Labour for their work of making sure it reaches this stage. This country has an unemployment rate of over 30 per cent. That means over 10 million Kenyans out there are either unemployed or under-employed. Without the structures and laws that we need to support the internship programs, we will end up having many under-employed citizens. Those citizens will not be able to look after their families effectively. When we come up with a Bill such as this, we are putting in legal frameworks. We are making sure that the monthly stipend is decent enough for them to sustain their families. We are making sure that the programs you have within the various public institutions are well- tailored to ensure that, if those interns are absorbed, they will have the required experience. I know that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has an internship programme that lasts two years, which guarantees everyone's absorption. Hon. Elachi mentioned that one is employed as an individual. As a country, we have two areas that have done us good, but are also our undoing. One of the areas is that we rush to court with everything. We paralyse the national Government and county governments from performing their duties and then, in the end, we ask where the services are. It is because they have been derailed. I remember having a conversation with the Governor of Nairobi, Hon. Sakaja, about what we were going to do about the garbage collection since somebody had gone to court and stopped the contract that they were about to enter with somebody who had won the bid. When we go to court or demonstrate, we injure ourselves. I look at the TSC, which is a hot topic for now since they had a number of interns. Normally, they absorb the interns for over two years. They have a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to that effect. Now that we are going to have a law that says an internship should not be more than 12 months, that CBA would, therefore, have to be renegotiated so that they are absorbed within 12 months. Having an intern for two years is not right. The Government should not allow internships to run for over two years. If we are going to absorb all the interns in the education sector, we must ensure that we provide the necessary budget. We will not require a 100 per cent budget as some teachers would retire. We need to ensure that the money allocated for interns is strictly used for the intended purpose. This year's budget is going to be over Ksh2 billion. Therefore, we should ensure that the money that is going to be allocated to the interns would be used as such. I like the idea to provide them with sick leave, maternity and paternity leave. If we do not, when an intern wants to be absorbed, and she goes for an interview, she might be viewed as a burden if she is pregnant. But if it is provided for in law, there would be no discrimination. Additionally, one can fall sick at any point. You can walk into an interview healthy and, six 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."
}