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{
    "id": 1476587,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1476587/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 138,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Westlands, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Tim Wanyonyi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. On behalf of all the Members of this House, I welcome the students from Aga Khan Academy, which is a school in my constituency. I encourage them to follow the proceedings of the House and also learn how Parliament functions because these are the leaders that we are preparing to take over from us. This is the National Assembly, one of the Houses of Parliament. Welcome, feel free, enjoy, and ask many questions to the staff of Parliament who are with you so that when you leave, you know that we are here to support you and to ensure that schools function. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for the opportunity. As we debate this Motion on bursaries, I remember that long time ago, there were Government bursaries which were enshrined in secrecy because, during our time in school, those who used to get bursaries were children whose parents worked in the Office of the President. I do not know whether it was the Ministry of Education, but they were mostly from the Office of the President. Over time, things have changed. We have come up with devolution and the NG-CDF. We are trying as much as we can to devolve functions from the national Government to the smallest unit in the administrative system, that is, the ward level, so that these funds are more accessible to people. This will ensure that more people benefit from the county, constituency and presidential funds. All these things happen in constituencies. I know that bursaries through the NG-CDF are functioning very well. There are many other bursary programmes that are to the advantage of the children and parents of this country. We are looking at increasing the allocations to these bursaries. Under the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), we had proposed to increase the allocation to the NG-CDF from 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent. That would have meant that we could pay full school fees for students or give a minimum of Ksh20,000 to a student. If you were to pay Ksh20,000, especially for students in day schools, you would have paid almost the full school fees for the whole year. We know that the Mover of this Motion intends to make bursaries more efficient and ensure that there is enough money to cater for school fees for children and many other things. I am very concerned about centralising the fund or collapsing all these other bursaries into one. I do not know if that will create efficiency or more problems. Look at the HELB and the students in institutions of higher learning. Accessing HELB is a big problem, but accessing bursaries through the NG-CDF or the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) is much easier. We know where these offices are, we issue bursaries out there, and people are very happy. I am very sure that Mheshimiwa Esther Passaris' intention is to create efficiency in the issuance of bursaries and to increase the allocations. However, I have an issue with centralising or collapsing all these bursaries into one. Let us leave them the way they are, but make sure that we get the rules and…"
}