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"id": 1563868,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563868/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Thang’wa",
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"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for the opportunity to reply to this Motion. From the onset, I would like to take this opportunity to thank every Senator who contributed to this Motion. To be precise, this Motion has been spoken to by 17 senators, including myself. Out of the 17 senators, only one has opposed it. Madam Temporary Speaker, this Motion is calling for free secondary education. That is what was in the mouth of every Senator who supported this Motion, saying that we should have free education. I call upon President William Ruto, that the majority who have spoken have said that this country is ripe for free secondary education. Just like President Mwai Kibaki, who gave us free and compulsory primary education, President Ruto can now make it his legacy and give us free, compulsory secondary education. Madam Temporary Speaker, it does not make sense to make primary education compulsory and free, then after you educate them, you tell them, pay for your children. If you made it compulsory in primary school, also make it compulsory and free in secondary school. Madam Temporary Speaker, we have come to learn that from the funds that I have calculated here, not once or twice, the country has funds. I therefore, would like to answer Sen. Ledama, who opposed the Motion. I think he opposed the Motion because of semantics. Perhaps he got it wrong somewhere. He opposed it but supported within the context. So, I think it was the issue of audit. When you talk about the Ministry to audit, we are not talking about the auditing that is done by the Auditor-General. We are talking about review, look into and research. It is worth noting that every Ministry has internal auditors. I think they need to do that to tell us where we are at, as a country. In addition, Madam Temporary Speaker, if you read the resolution number two of this Motion, it says “consolidate”. I have to be clear here, because this is one of the issues that has confused the Senator. Here, ‘consolidate’ means integrate, harmonize, streamline, not necessarily putting it in one basket. I would even oppose that myself. I am not calling for bursaries to be put in one basket, then we start dishing out the way we are dishing it out. That is centralization. It is taking it away from the village and bringing it to Nairobi. I cannot support that. The money that you have for bursaries is integrated into the schools, so that education can be free. I want to demonstrate by saying that yesterday, I made the calculations. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}