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{
    "id": 1532619,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1532619/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 4872,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kabondo Kasipul, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Eve Obara",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "the list of commitments or promises that have been made is long. We must instil some financial discipline within ourselves. I will now go to the Departmental Committee on Education, where I am a Member. I am happy because we had some noise within the sector, but a few of the issues have been addressed in this Supplementary Budget. The first is the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for the university staff, which was a promise. They say that a promise is a debt. I am happy because we have accommodated this within the Second Supplementary Budget. We have allocated Ksh4.3 billion for the CBA for the university staff. Moi University and Egerton University were in the news for the wrong reasons. Moi University has new management. As a Committee, we met them. We gave them time to put their house in order and prepare a report to tell us exactly where they are with all their challenges. I am happy because the Liaison Committee has allocated Ksh2 billion for Moi University and Egerton University. These are not the only universities with challenges. We still have others like the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) and the University of Nairobi. They will appear before the Committee when we have a retreat. So, we can look at how to mitigate some of their problems and how to stop them from recurring. We have also allocated money for teachers’ promotions. All of us who oversee the education sector know that some teachers have not been promoted for many years, 10 or 17 years. Little money has been allocated. We still believe we need to allocate more resources to motivate them. Some have been in service, and others have acted for years but cannot be promoted because money is not available. Ksh17 billion has been allocated in the Budget. There is also an issue of school infrastructure. We are aware that most Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) do not have classes. Some schools use primary school classrooms as JSS schools. Some little money, Ksh500 million, has been allocated in this Second Supplementary Budget as we look forward to how the main Budget will address this matter. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I listened to what the Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning said about Appropriation-in-Aid (A-in-A). Even within the education sector, we were informed that Ksh15 billion will be raised from the Semi- Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs), including universities. However, they could not produce the amount they raised between July and December so that we could assess the accuracy of their projections. We asked those institutions to give us this information, even as we approve Ksh15 billion as being A-in-A received from these institutions. Ksh5.9 million has been allocated for the examinations. As a Committee, we said that examinations are done every year. They should not be treated as an emergency or unforeseen event. They must be factored in every year when making the Budget because they are known. I want to talk about the allocation of resources. Yesterday, we had a heated debate in this House about imbalances in the allocation of resources. As a House, we need to take this very seriously. When budgets are being presented, they must be itemised so that we know exactly where money is going. Even as we speak, there are those areas which are left behind. What do we do as a House? I believe that we need to have affirmative action for them. There must be a threshold for areas that have received those resources. This should be stopped for a while to let other areas catch up with that threshold put in place by the relevant committees. As I finish, some areas have more than enough teachers, which is the reality. They do not even have enough work in the schools, yet other areas have a shortfall of over 6,000 teachers. What are we doing about this? This is why I am saying affirmative action must be put in place for those areas to catch up because all of us pay taxes. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Once again, I support the Motion."
}