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"id": 183434,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to support. In supporting this Motion, I want to ask the Ministry to seriously consider capacity building amongst the District Development Officers (DDO). As of now, the DDOs are supposed to steer all the development that is going to be done and implemented in this country. They, however, do not have the capacity and the necessary infrastructure to bring the plans forward. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am sure the Minister is listening very carefully. To prove the point, look at Nairobi, Head 204, Sub Head 0000, Item 3111400, that is an item that is supposed to do Research, Feasibility Studies, Project Preparation, Design and Project Supervision. The total allocation is Kshs120,000 this financial year. I want to make it easier for Members to understand what Kshs120,000 means. That means that every month, they have Kshs24,000. Since a month has about 20 working days, we are talking of roughly Kshs80 per day. This is meant to do each of the items listed above. This wonderful Ministry will have Kshs80 per day and I want to make it even easier for the Minister to understand this. That money is enough for bamba 50 and a bottle of coke. If you look at it in any other way, it brings us down to only one conclusion; that money is wasted. It cannot do Research, Feasibility Studies, Project Supervision and so on and so forth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would have expected that within this limited budget, we somehow have a big budget on training and capacity building within that Ministry. We need capacity building, even if it means taking all the DDOs overseas to do planning or taking them back to the university. At least, at one time, we will have planners. We will have people recruited all the way to the Divisions. Having said that, I want to tell you how painful it is to have people who cannot plan. This is because poor planning always leads to a disaster. October 21, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2853 Right now, the people of Ukambani will support me when I say that there are no seeds. Well, in a planning perspective, this means that there will be hunger and, therefore, an emergency and disaster. But had we planned and had seeds, these rains which are very generous, would have averted yet a bigger crisis. We are going to spend more, through the relevant Ministry because the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030 was out of action and was not involved, by the relevant Ministerial bodies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, right now, in Naivasha, we are celebrating because we have a super highway. In fact, we have a dual carriage way in Naivasha Town. But because planning was not involved a trauma hospital in Naivasha has not been considered. Therefore, those who will be unfortunate to have accidents at high speed, must die. That is a fact! That is why we need planning if we do not want to result to emergencies. This is so important. While supporting this Motion, I would like to say that, if we are to see the realities of Vision 2030, we have to take a whole lot of DDOs, the provincial teams, all the way to the Divisions back to school for capacity building. This is necessary so that if you are a DDO in Kitui, you are able to see Kitui as a district with highest reserves of coal which can be converted to power. The power can be used in industries, resulting into employment and so on and so forth. That is how I look at this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at the same Item I mentioned earlier on and look at the North Eastern Province, they luckily got a new Ministry which is going to have a substantial amount of money. But, again, the amount they have for Research, Development and Project Preparation is Kshs150,000. Really, in all fairness, if we created a Ministry in North Eastern Province that is supposed to overhaul their overall thinking to an extent that they catch up with the rest of the world, and we cannot afford two bottles of coke for the driver and officer, in terms of researchers, how will it work. I am saying, we should find enough money for research and build capacity for people who are in various parts of the country. For example, in Lamu, you remember we bugled up with a proposal during those days when somebody very clever proposed the Port of Mombasa to be like the one in Dubai. They took the plan and just changed the name \"Mombasa\" and inserted \"Dubai\" and so, it developed the way it is today. For those who have been to Bangkok, the highway from the airport was designed by the University of Nairobi. It was a proposal for Uhuru Highway because the students could see traffic coming. But nobody bothered to look at it and the Ministry of Planning and National Development did not look at it that way. That design was taken as a gift by Bangkok and they utilised it. I stand to be corrected, but anybody can go there and see that the clever Kenyans designed that, although it was meant for our City. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have no interest in Ukambani, but I feel pain when I see those people suffering. They are in the news everyday and they look like rejects; it feels very bad. As somebody who has been trained by this Government for very many years on planning, I feel very bad. If the planners could have planned it such that all the sand is owned by the local people and the co-operatives are doing the selling, all those billions going to the billionaires, who are building in Nairobi, would be going to Ukambani and the whole economy in Ukambani would be transformed. Some of the money could even be used for conservation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am still on research and development. Look at the Uplands Beacon Factory; who said that the private investor could do better than the local people, who have always stood there and protected Uplands Beacon Factory? This Ministry should spearhead planning if it has to realize the fruits of Vision 2030. I want to come to a very sensitive area by saying this: Tupendwe, tusipendwe, this Ministry should come up with a policy that says that those people who want to invest in Kenya must invest to a level---"
}