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"id": 189655,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Chanzu",
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"legal_name": "Yusuf Kifuma Chanzu",
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"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to support this important Vote No.42 for the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Just going by what has been said now and what we know, the youth constitute a very large proportion of our population. They constitute more than 70 per cent of the population. Therefore, it is very important that we also lay emphasis on this. If you imagine that the youth in our country constitute about 70 per cent of the population, we need to ask ourselves what will happen in the 1814 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 15, 2008 next five or ten years. Over time, the youth will eventually graduate into grown-ups. That is the reason why I support the Vote. I think, in future, the Government should consider allocating more funds to this Ministry. This is because if you go by numbers and you allot money per youth, I think you will find that the calculation gives you much more. But this time, just like the previous speaker said, the Ministry has been allocated about 1 per cent of the total Budget. I would have liked a situation where we have got a starting point. We should not be talking about 1 per cent for a proportion of the population which is over 70 per cent. I think something like 10 per cent of the Budget would have been a good starting point. If you do not allocate funds for a certain purpose or function, you will not acheive the desired results. So, I think in future, we should look at a possibility of increasing the allocation to the Ministry. I also want to say that the idea of the YEDF was a very noble one. But these ideas come up around the time we are going for general elections and sometimes they are not well-thought- through. It is a noble idea, but by the time it was implemented, the Government was not prepared for it. I think the idea was to entice the youth to vote in a certain manner. But I think it is something that we should be thinking about when we have got enough time like now, so that we do not think about giving Kshs1 million per constituency for the youth. We know the value of money today. An amount of Kshs1 million per constituency for the YEDF is a drop in the ocean. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I appreciate that the Minister, who is here, has shown that she is very active. She has got a lot of interest in the issues of the youth and sports. I would like us to support her, so that more funds can be allocated to her Ministry. We want to support this Ministry. I appreciate the fact that the former Minister for Finance allocated an additional Kshs1 million for each constituency to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. However, I think it is the view of the hon. Members that this money should be channelled through the constituencies, so that there is proper control. This is because what I have seen with the YEDF and Women Enterprise Development Fund (WEDF) in the constituencies is that there are many youth and women who do not know who to approach when it comes to disbursement of the money. That is why you will find that on the schedule which was supplied to us sometimes last week, there are a lot of disparities in the utilization of those funds. So, I would like to request the Minister to look into the possibilities of this money being channelled through Members of Parliament, so that even if it is less, it be subsidised from CDF when they are taking care of the entire amount. In order to encourage sports at the constituency level, we must be ready to finance the infrastructure so that we have stadia and so on. There is no point of taking money where the youth do not have playing grounds. The other day, some youth approached me and told me that I should try to talk to school heads to allow them to use school grounds. But the reason why school heads do not want to give out their sports fields is because of lack of security. Sometimes chaos erupt and property is damaged. So, that is why I am saying that we need to be prepared for this. It should not be like what we saw with the introduction of Free Primary Education. Even today, you will find about 80 children in a classroom. How can somebody teach such a class? It means that we were not prepared. So, I would like the Minister and the Government to consider facilitating the infrastructure. We must know where we are going to have these sports grounds and so on. They must also be funded by the Government. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I also wanted to say something that came up in the Budget about youth polytechnics. There is something we are missing. Most of the polytechnics we had in this country have been turned into constituent colleges of the universities and yet we are not July 15, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1815 replacing them. It will be my wish that instead of restraining the amount of money we are giving to these polytechnics--- If we could get these youth polytechnics funded at the locational level so that, at least, in every constituency you have a number of youth polytechnics. If you look at the number of children who finish KCPE, quite a good number of them may not further their education. The polytechnics at the locational level could be a good area where they could be occupied as they mature. I was even going to suggest something although this could be under another Ministry. For the same reason I have stated, the Kenya National Library Services should extend its services to the constituencies. Those who are idle and may want to pursue further education could do that privately. They will be able to access materials they can read. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, with those few remarks, I beg to support and say that we should give the Ministry more money."
}