Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1591572,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1591572/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 329,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "fashionable to critique governments of the day, successive administrations, but more specifically, the current one, for reasons that you and I know, but are not very far from the reasons of what you said yesterday when we were interrogating the matter that was before us in this House. I was mentioning the example of payment of examination fees. Even as we try to shoulder the burden of parents who cannot afford to pay examination fees for their students, is it not a fact that there are those who can afford and, therefore, there must be a basic understanding of how you separate those who can afford and those who cannot afford, so that you do not end up running a near socialist republic because we are nearly becoming one? Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for every other policy nowadays, we are told, no, free primary education was introduced or another free was introduced. This is without ever reverting back to ask ourselves who is paying for all these free things that we want to enjoy in this country. We are told these ones are demonstrating; they need a salary increment. Yes, let us pay them, and then another load shows up. There is disconnect between our financial sense and the realities of the country that we live in. We are a country that is pennywise, but pound foolish. We believe that it is possible to ignore sense, but believe the shillings will make sense. It is not possible from an economic perspective and we must begin to think and reflect back on the proper way of rolling out our social intervention programmes. Then when we do interventions in the exam sector, we can have a conversation and say, for example, those who go to public primary schools, being certain that anyone in this day and age who allows their children to go to public primary schools needs Government support. Then those who go to a certain categorization of schools and academies can do with either half subsidies or no subsidy at all and their parents will be okay with it. However, we should not undermine the millions of other children who can benefit from these programmes based on the fact that it is not economically viable to make some of these programmes. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I was laying the basis for us to appreciate that as a country, a time has come for us to be under the full realization that it is not possible to have a one-size-fits-all proposal on various social intervention programmes and believe that things will definitely be okay. The specifics of this Bill is that it seeks to provide a framework for the administration of non-contributory social protection interventions in Kenya and establish the National Board for Social Protection. It also creates a comprehensive legal framework to guide implementation of social protection programmes that support vulnerable individuals and households. At least we have been able to map out the households through the Kenya National Population Survey of 2019 and the previous years. You can therefore tell the number of households that are in our counties. That is the data that we use for guiding policy decisions, just like the formula we have just passed. Therefore, this Board that we are creating is to advise and guide as well as ensure that these programmes are not run blindly. 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."
}