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"id": 189915,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/189915/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kamama",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
"speaker": {
"id": 165,
"legal_name": "Asman Abongutum Kamama",
"slug": "asman-kamama"
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"content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for granting me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Vote. I will start by joining my colleagues in thanking the Minister for the way she moved this Motion. I would also like to commend her team in the Ministry; the bureaucrats who have really tried to give us designs and best policies that have, actually, taken us through the last two or three years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the future of our country is in our youth. That is one of the greatest challenges. We must face that challenge as Kenyans and as leaders. If you travel throughout the entire Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region, you will find Kenyan youths wandering everywhere looking for jobs and all manner of engagements because they are frustrated. In this case, I am talking about youths who have gone beyond college and universities. That is a small number. When you look at the bottom of the pyramid, the number of youths between the ages of 17 and 30 years, is quite big! Their problems are monumental! So, I want to congratulate the Ministry for coming up with a policy, especially the National Youth Policy and the National Youth Enterprise Fund. But a lot has to be done in terms of increment of the allocations. We need something close to Kshs10 billion under the National Youth Enterprise Fund. As you well know, when you look at the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, you will be told a lot of things about the resource envelopes. You will be told: \"This is our priority! The priority is on the other side!\" So, we need to prioritize the issue of the youth. I want to appeal to my colleagues here that, when we come up with the Fiscal Management Act which, I suppose we will have very soon, we need to have powers to amend and even allocate some of that money to where we think it is our priority. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support the policy on the youth polytechnics. As we all know, most of them had almost collapsed because of the propaganda among the youth that those institutions are associated with failures. They are not! In fact, most of the people with money at the moment are graduates of polytechnics. That is because when you consider the kind of money those masons and carpenters get in a week, you will be surprised! I mean those who are engaged in construction in one way or the other. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of sports is extremely imperative because this country is popular in the world because of sports and athletics. This country is known for bad things and, sometimes, in most cases, for good things. One of those good things is sports through our athletes. Of course, recently, even our senior citizens have promoted this country. For example, the former hon. Member for Tetu, hon. Maathai, promoted the status of this country by being the first African woman to get the Nobel Peace Prize. So, jointly, it is through those achievements that this country is widely known. So, we need to promote sports of all nature. We need to promote rugby, volleyball and football. Indeed, we need football academies in this country. Let us not depend on ligi ndogos . Let us not depend on what is happening in Mathare and these small clubs. We need real academies so that we can tap the talent of the youth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also need to establish academies for athletics, because this is where our potential is. It is very shameful to hear that gentlemen from Nandi 1784 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 10, 2008 District are changing their citizenship to Americans and then competing against fellow Kenyans. It is really embarrassing when they compete against their brothers from Kenya. The ones who change their status will always do better, because those countries have better and superior policies and better ways of promoting these people. So, I want us to promote sports. Again, we want a bit of benchmarking. We should benchmark our policies with countries that have done well in sports like Cuba. Cubans are very good sportsmen. We also have countries such as Jamaica and South Africa. Let us incorporate their policies in our national youth policy. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to support the allocation of funds to the Tana Basin. However, I do not want us to consider one section. I used to be a Government officer in this area and I know that the youth in those areas live in abject poverty, especially in Bura Irrigation Scheme and the former Hola Irrigation Scheme. The youth there are really suffering. Their communities are also suffering. I will tell you for those of you who have not travelled, there is a community in that basin that is called Malakote and Munyoyaya. The poverty in that region is very high. So, I want to commend the Ministry for allocating funds for that area but we want other districts to also benefit. We do not want to concentrate or give disproportionate attention to one area. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also the issue of idle youth. We have the famous and notorious Mungiki . Let us have a study on this people. We also have the youth in the North Rift who engage in cattle-rustling? Let us go to the bottom and substratum of what is really affecting these youth. Why do they leave their homes and participate in cattle-rustling. Some of them participate in Mungiki activities. We all know what the Mungiki do. Let us come up with the best way of addressing their problems. This is because they are actually a menace. If we do not confront it, being a very big challenge in this country, we may live to regret. So, let us find the best way of engaging these boys and girls in productive activities. In future, the Ministries should come up with a clear dichotomy of what is in the Development Vote. This is what we are really interested in as hon. Members. In most cases, the Recurrent Expenditure is just traditional. We know that we must have Ministries and heads of departments from the provinces to the districts, but we want the specifics of what is contained in the Development Vote. As we all know, the devil is in the detail. We want to know how we are benefiting. We do not want to approve allocation of funds to other districts at the expense of others. Otherwise, I want to wish the Minister and her team a productive time in this Ministry. We will support this Ministry up to the grassroots level. Lastly, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me touch on the issue of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund. The policy of this Fund in ASAL region has not been operationalised in the manner that is acceptable to the people of that region. This is because we do not have banks. Some of these SACCOs are not even there. So, let us have a better way of operationalising this Fund in the ASAL region. When I talk about ASAL region, I am talking about some remote parts of North Eastern, Upper Eastern and Upper North Rift. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}