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{
    "id": 1492217,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1492217/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 76,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for this opportunity so that I add my voice to this important debate in this House. As I do that, I think we need to have what we call a fact sheet. We have a number of bursary schemes in this country. We have the Presidential Bursary Scheme, the Members of Parliament bursary, the county government bursary, the Non-Governmental Organisations bursary, and many other bursaries flying all over the country. I think what this Motion is trying to propose is that if we consolidated these bursaries to be one basket, more likely, we will be able to give bursaries to all the needy students in the country. We need to do much more than just this Motion in terms of getting the statistics right. I am not sure whether anybody in this country has sat down and done a summation of all the bursaries we are discussing and found out how much it totals to. Against that, then you do a tabulation of how much money we require to meet the needs of all the needy students in this country. Unless that is done, we will be debating theories and we will have a gap in terms of what we call evidence-informed decision making. We know there are challenges in terms of distribution of bursaries. The ultimate goal of bursaries is to make sure that the needy students are able to access education. I agree with my colleagues who have said that in this country we experience serious challenges when it comes to equitable distribution of resources in areas like bursaries, school infrastructure, and roads. The way we distribute our resources is wanting. It is wanting because while all Kenyans pay taxes, some areas seem to be getting an advantage in terms of resource allocation as opposed to the other parts of this country. That is why I am going to oppose this Motion. The reason I am opposing it is this: unless a number of things change, it is going to be business as usual. We are going to put these bursaries into one basket, and some areas of this country will never access them, and the needy students will never go to school. What is my proposal? I can only support this Motion if we are assured that there will be no payment of school fees in all the schools, so that all the students go to school and the Government pays their fees. In that case, I will have no problem because I will be sure that my Kitui Central needy students will go to school and not come knocking on my door saying they have no school fees. In a situation where we want to put it in one basket, and then these Hon. Members will not be able to sleep in their houses because every morning parents will be knocking on their doors seeking bursaries, I say no. It is time we address the issue of equitable distribution of resources before we discuss putting all the bursaries into one basket by pushing this resource back to the Ministry of 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."
}