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{
    "id": 1503209,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1503209/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 449,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I beg to second this Bill. Since the Chairman of the Committee has articulated its provisions and the real intent, allow me to thank the Committee for having adopted this Bill as a Committee Bill. It indeed addresses very critical issues in our economy. Principally, it is creating or prescribing a threshold of procurements which shall – the word “shall” has been famously used as mandatory – be awarded to local firms in order to promote the growth of local enterprises and local industry. If you look at Clause 21 of this Bill, it seeks to amend Section 149 of the principal Act, the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, 2015 to task the Public Procurement Authority, referred to as “authority” to ensure that priority is given to citizens in subcontracting of tenders. You know the problems the local contractors and entrepreneurs have found themselves in. When the President delivered his State of the Nation Address to this House and to the nation last week, he directed that within the first quarter of next year, e-procurement must become a reality. I was very encouraged. We must deal with the elephant in the room, which is corruption. We keep talking about it. We have forever talked about corruption. Children go to school, grow up and become old and still find people talking about corruption. They also start talking about it themselves and they become corrupt. That is what bedevils our country. It is time we stopped talking about corruption and acted on it. I must commend what the President directed last week that e-procurement should become a reality and not an aspiration. That is the way to go. We must ensure that we no longer just speak about corruption but we are doing something to deal with it. Digitisation and e-procurement will cure in a big way all the issues we have around corruption in the procurement space. Corruption always begins at the procurement level in any organisation. In the process, many of our contractors and entrepreneurs lose opportunities to grow as entrepreneurs. They also lose opportunities to be awarded Government contracts and tenders at the national and county levels and even in State corporations because those with financial muscle come from outside the country and grease the hands of procurement officers in various entities. Therefore, it is important that we have in law a certain threshold of procurement that can never go to other people other than our local entrepreneurs. We have very many people who have the capacity but they never get an opportunity. I had particularly mentioned Clause 21 because you find situations where there is a huge tender worth hundreds of billions of shillings and the main contractor who comes from outside the country comes with subcontractors from his country. That is the case in donor- funded projects…"
}