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"id": 189909,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Bahari",
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"speaker": {
"id": 156,
"legal_name": "Abdul Bahari Ali Jillo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to join my colleagues in supporting the Vote for this Ministry. From the outset, I would like to say that, as a new Ministry, it has really tried to establish itself across the country. We need to congratulate them for that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, youth is a status which is transitory. Therefore, we must prepare our youth for the next stage. One of the areas where we can do that very well is in skills development. As much as there is a high rate of unemployment in this country, Kenya, in the past, has contributed its human resource to the region and beyond. If you go to any country in Africa now, you will find many Kenyans who have been employed in various positions, including very senior positions. You cannot believe it that anywhere you go, you will find Kenyans occupying very important positions. This is because they are well-educated and skilled individuals. Therefore, we must, as a nation, try to develop our youth. With regard to the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), it is important that the youth officers should properly engage and prepare the youth in respective areas to be able to acquire loans. In some instances, you might find that the youth have not been able to acquire loans. July 10, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1779 So, there must be something fundamentally wrong. The Ministry must have a criteria to determine whether the youth officers have been useful or otherwise. The programme that we have started in this Ministry - we have put a lot of emphasis on it - can act just as an example, just as the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) has acted as an example in Africa and in many other countries. So, if we are able to use this potential that we have in the best manner, we will be a good example of how this country can address its problems or exploit its potential. I must say that the youth in this country have not been properly involved, particularly in leadership areas, because a lot of appointments take into account issues like age, whether it is in politics or outside. I think it is high time that the youth were appointed to senior positions in the Government, so that after sometime they can compete for the Presidency of this country. One way in which this Ministry can be helped, and the Government can allocate more resources as has been suggested by various hon. Members, is by ensuring that all Government work for which the National Youth Service (NYS) has capacity - because the NYS is under this Ministry - must be given--- I hope the Minister is listening; it must be given to the NYS, so that the Government can save money. The Government can thereafter plough back all the savings into this Ministry. It is only in one instance or two where we have heard that the NYS has been used. We can use them in road construction and the maintenance of the Government vehicles. The NYS has a lot of capacity, particularly in that area. You can rest assured that with that kind of an arrangement, there will be enough money for this Ministry to use for this purpose. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in areas like drilling, as long as we can acquire the state of the art equipment, we can also use the NYS and the military to ensure that the savings that are realised out of that are ploughed back to this Ministry. While we continue equipping our youth polytechnics, we must also take into account the issue of technology. A lot of things that used to be done manually have now changed and we must take into account the recent developments in technology as we continue equipping our youth polytechnics. This will ensure that the element of efficiency is brought to the fore. It should be for polytechnics across the country, because that is how we can go about the issue of technology transfer into our villages and every corner of this country. One hon. Member alluded to the issue of this Ministry engaging schools. I want to emphasise particulary the area of guidance and counselling, which has been ignored in schools. I think this Ministry needs to take an initiative to make sure that our kids, or youth, are guided accordingly for the purpose of their career development. In this light, I want to appeal to the Ministry to reconsider some of the recent decisions where it was only absorbing \"O\" Levels. We do not want to see Kenyans who have the capacity to be trained and develop themselves eliminated from that process, because they have not attained the \"O\" Level standard. Anybody should get entry into the NYS, because many of these people have potential. If you look at kids from the word go, they develop a lot of interest in certain things. They may not be very good in school but they can be trained and develop further, so that they can earn a living. So, guidance and counselling, this Ministry must take them seriously. It must ensure that it involves the Ministry of Education and schools to guide our youth appropriately. In some of the remote areas, particularly, in the arid and semi-arid areas, there are no youth polytechnics. If they are there, maybe you will find only one in a constituency and that is not enough. May be the Ministry should go out and see how we can reach out to the vast districts and constituencies to ensure that students have access to polytechnics, because most of the time they operate as day institutions. We cannot afford boarding institutions; when the nearest polytechnic, like in my constituency, is over 100 kilometres away, then certainly we have many youth left out of this programme. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the subject of sports, we are happy that the 1780 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 10, 2008 Ministry is looking at this matter. This is an area with a lot of potential, and I do not want to repeat what my colleagues have said. However, certainly, the Ministry needs to move fast and ensure that this area is also looked after right from the grassroot level, so that we can tap our potential to the fullest. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}