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{
    "id": 1443960,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1443960/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 71,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": "inequity in development and resources. The Members of Parliamen at that time, which I was not at that time, but in a committee that was discussing development, were fed up with moving from one Ministry to the other. You would go beg for one hospital in one place, then to another Ministry to beg for one road, then beg the Minister for Water for money to dig a borehole. All those are supposed to be things of the past with the new Constitution. It was very clear that we were doing two things; devolving power and devolving resources. Have we devolved resources to the level that development is equitable in this country? When you hear our youth talk of unfair employment, it means some people feel others are more employed than others. We need to start scrutinizing and be honest and answerable when it comes to employment. Again, we need to know whether we have prepared everybody for these positions. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the issue of employment again touches on the unions that we have seen rising. I know our youth waited on the issue of the employment of nurses and doctors. However, we need to ask ourselves. These doctors are asking for the implementation of agreements that have been negotiated. Our Cabinet Secretaries must ask themselves the big question. When the negotiations took place, a Cabinet Secretary was involved. There is no way another Cabinet Secretary comes in to denounce what a previous Cabinet Secretary did. I say this with all due respect because I was also a Cabinet Secretary and had to handle negotiations of higher education that had been done in 1997 when I was a lecturer at the university. You arrive in the Ministry and find that there were agreements that were signed, but you cannot run away from them. Ironically, we are discussing negotiation, yet there were negotiated agreements that were even signed, whether it is in health, education etcetera . Whatever had been signed has been signed. It is not helpful to have our medical doctors sleeping outside Afya House as they are doing right now. We do not have doctors in hospitals or in our medical centers at the county level. Why are we leaving professionals to beg for what is rightfully theirs if that signature was done? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I appreciate that the President said he is going to cut down and make savings. Whatever savings they make, the first thing is our health, because health is another right we cannot run away from. We must have these doctors recruited. We cannot run away from the fact that this was agreed. The only thing we can do is to renegotiate for the future, but not for the current present. I would, therefore, like to ask our sister, the Cabinet Secretary for Health, that there is no need to fight a war that we eventually lose. We have fought so many battles, our governors have been fighting with nurses, and eventually, they pay. It is imperative to stick to the law and the fact that we have agreements that we must make. So, as our youth are raising the same, we will not wait for the same youth to go to Afya House to make demands that we already know. It is very important that now that we have opened our minds, and they have opened our minds to the fact that the realities are before us, that we deal with those. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}