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{
    "id": 1562856,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1562856/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 295,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13588,
        "legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
        "slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
    },
    "content": "The picture coming from those reports is not good. This money that we give as bursary funds is being misapplied and misappropriated in our counties. One of the recommendations we have given is the need to align those bursary funds to the law and consolidate them. Madam Temporary Speaker, some of us went to school through bursary funds when bursary was working. I remember at the university, I was one of the beneficiaries of the Rattansi Education Bursary Fund. They were really looking for the truly needy students. Now, progressively, Madam Speaker, we are seeing a situation where people are being given bursary even if they are not needy. Everyone is being given bursary for political purposes to the extent that one student is given Kshs2,000. What does one do with Kshs2,000? It is because the Members of Parliament who run the CDF bursaries are using it for political manipulation. If you do not support them, they deny you bursary. The scheme that hon. Thang’wa is proposing will eradicate political manipulation, where bursaries will be given to the neediest students. Even as we think about consolidation, I think it is important for us to rethink the policy on fees, so that we have a free education policy from Early Childhood Education (ECD) to university. If a poor country such as Burkina Faso can wake up one day and declare that there is no fees payment in school, and it is working, how can a country such as Kenya not do that? I think it is important that even as we talk about consolidation of bursary programmes, we should also talk about how we can have a free education policy in this country. Madam Speaker, even as we are talking about bursaries and National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF), currently there is a public participation exercise that is being conducted by members of the National Assembly. That exercise is unconstitutional because the MPs are mobilizing their supporters to meet in CDF offices and guiding the process. This should have been an open exercise with the Senators participating. One of the issues they are raising is the Senate Oversight Fund. How can they conduct a public participation talking about Senate Oversight Fund without the input of Senators? That is a debate we are going to engage in because this is unconstitutional and the Senate is not fully involved. I second."
}