HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 189896,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/189896/?format=api",
"text_counter": 175,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
},
"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support this Vote and to congratulate, like those who have spoken before me, that particular Ministry because it is actually one of the newest Ministries. I must say that the people who have been there - the bureaucrats - including the Permanent Secretary, have done a big job in getting the Ministry on its feet. It is easy for us, sometimes, to criticize them, but not realizing how difficult it was for them to start. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I should also congratulate the Minister and the politicians in that Ministry because they have shown a great deal of interest in sports. This year alone, we have seen the Minister, the Assistant Minister along with the President and the Prime Minister out there supporting our athletes. It is that kind of visibility that we will need, even for our young people to begin to have faith in sports and for us, as politicians, to also appreciate it and show to the wider public that, indeed, we should support and be proud of sports. In this connection, I congratulate the politicians along with the Permanent Secretary and members of his team. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is no need to repeat why issues to do with our youth are important. They happen to be the majority. They are also the poorest. They are the ones who are most affected by drugs and alcoholism. It is a group, being young and youthful, that we cannot leave out, if we want to reap the benefits of development in this country. You cannot leave your youngest and most energetic people! It is for this reason that we need to pay the greatest attention to our young people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are issues to do with the allocation of money. For example, there is the allocation of Kshs1 million for sports for every constituency, money for youth polytechnics, money for the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and so on. There are questions, especially for the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, as to whether or not the mechanism for deciding how that money is to be allocated is still being perfected in terms of ensuring that only the most deserving group benefit. The money should cut across the whole July 10, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1771 constituency, so that it is not the same group that is known that eventually gets the money. It is a way of just democratizing and ensuring that, that little amount of money is allocated in the most transparent way, to the most needy groups and that it also reaches out to groups that have not benefitted previously. So, the mechanism to do that is still an issue. That will apply to other issues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also the issue of equity. We like to avoid that issue when we talk about districts or constituencies. When you give Kshs1 million to a constituency like Embakasi, is it fair? How many youths do we have in Embakasi, compared to another constituency with fewer than 5,000 youths? These are important issues! As we talk about distribution in the future, it is important to ask questions about per capita so that, when we release that money, it makes the biggest difference in the various constituencies and districts of this country. As it is now, even though it looks equal and fair, it is, actually, quite unfair and inequitable when you consider the numbers that are involved. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the idea of wealth creation is very critical. It is good for us to tie our young people in micro-enterprises and other activities that can help them generate income. But are we linking our young people with the real big money? What is it that we are doing to ensure that, apart from those small micro-enterprises which will lend them Kshs5,000, Kshs10,000 or Kshs20,000, many of our young people have access to real big money with big banks? I know it is not easy because many young people do not have collateral. But it is important to begin to think of ways of making it look like it is just a drop in the ocean and that, for the young people who are initially poor, that is enough. For example, is it possible to get those young people to partner with more established business people? Can we convince those rich people who have such big businesses to attach some of those young people, as a requirement or a matter of national or social responsibility, so that we can create more wealth from families that are established and have made all the money? That is because the people we are talking about are young people who have problems with what they have inherited in terms of education and in terms of all the disadvantages you can talk about. So, it is very, very difficult for them to, therefore, break into that cycle. So, how can we get those that have been lucky to make it, to want to support those younger people from backgrounds that do not have the connections and resources to be big? Secondly, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, how can we get the young people to be bigger beneficiaries of Government projects? Again, it is much easier for established contractors and those with better connections to get Government jobs. There are jobs that the youth can do, but what deliberate efforts do we need to make to ensure that, as a matter of affirmative action, many Government jobs in districts and constituencies actually go to those youth groups as a way of supporting them? There has to be a deliberate effort because, if you leave it to open competition, you may as well forget it! We are talking about infrastructure, development programmes and doing big roads, stadiums and all the other things as a way of getting young people to actually get more jobs and contracts that can support them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the area of skill development and training, yes, I am delighted that we are going to be supporting one youth polytechnic in every constituency. But as the team has seen, if you go around to the polytechnics, they are extremely poorly endowed with equipment. I am glad you are making that effort. We need to do much more in terms of ensuring that we review the content, curriculum and equipment and also to ensure that we support these institutions to give those who go to them hope that they can move from there to diploma training institutions to universities. So, we need to have a mechanism that makes it possible for these young people to move from the polytechnics all the way to universities and attain a degree in a related field. That is a matter we should look into, as we review the curriculum. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should also think how best we can use the resources that we have. For example, how can we leverage what we have? We have money which 1772 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 10, 2008 we are expending on empowerment centres, which are outside polytechnics. We have money we are spending on village polytechnics. Would it not be ideal, if those empowerment centres and the youth polytechnics were one and the same thing. We should concentrate our resources so that those who get skills from our village polytechnics can use those empowerment centres and the empowerment centres can also benefit from that. I think we should consider that seriously, because constituencies are not too big. So, if we concentrate our resources, maybe, we are likely to get further. After all, empowerment can also support skills training. In this regard, we also need to ask, what we are doing to ensure that we can train our young people in our polytechnics to an internationally recognised skill. I am saying that, because if you go to most parts of Europe, America and Japan, you will see that there are no young people to work in those countries as masons, carpenters, plumbers and painters and so on. But there are certain standards which they ask for. To what extent can we look at our polytechnics and encourage them to have curricula that is international or make it possible for our young people to do examinations that are of international standards to prepare them for those markets, as long as we would make the relevant arrangements? Of course, we will always need them in this country. But if there are opportunities out there, we should also take advantage of those opportunities. That will depend on how we review our curricula. Issues of equity in other sectors should also be addressed. We cannot just talk about the youth and assume that giving them Kshs100,000, will solve their problems. We have to address the issues of inequality in this country. The reasons why so many young people are poor is because of our society that has continued to intensify inequalities between the poor and the rich to the extent that the gap is becoming even bigger. We are getting more poor people, but the rich are doing even better. So, unless we address these issues from a more comprehensive perspective, in terms of inequalities in education and employment, we will not solve these problems. This is because there are young people who are graduating from polytechnics and other institutions, but because of their background, they do not find jobs. There are students who come from other backgrounds even though they are not as qualified, they will be the first ones to get the jobs. In terms of making our polytechnic attractive--- It is one thing to train young people and to talk about skills, but we must make it attractive for young people who want to go there in terms of there being opportunities for self-employment, in terms of there being jobs that are well paying and in terms of society, generally, recognising the value of these artisans. If you go to Europe and America, you will find that artisans are very well paid. So, it makes it attractive. We need to come up with mechanisms of making these kinds of professions more attractive. On sports, I think the point has been made about not just agents but about the managers themselves. Some of the people who have managed sports monies in these countries; tracks and field, for example- I used to hear about Okeyo for ages. It is the same people we are hearing about. They are there. We know how much they are messing these athletes. I think we need to come up with mechanisms of getting athletes themselves to be involved in sports management because they are the ones who know where the shoe pinches. They are not involved, as it is now. So, therefore, we let these old men, who use this as an opportunity to travel to Beijing and to other countries, to just mess up the future of our young people. We must get the athletes involved and we must come up with a mechanism of doing that. We also need to popularise sports. We must diversify it, as it has already been said. We must repossess stadia that has been grabbed. We must support Kenyan sports. We should also get the private sector into sport. Finally, talking about leadership, we cannot address the issue of the youth if we do not help them to be politically organised. Political parties in this country are about old men and women and for old men and women. We have to find a way of getting young people to be in politics. This is because if they are in politics, they will be able to make decisions about their future, including July 10, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1773 ensuring that they have resources allocated for their own problems. As it is now, our young people are just out there to be misused by politicians to cause trouble, for ethnic fights and so on. We need to organise them politically. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}