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"id": 189919,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Njuguna",
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"speaker": {
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"legal_name": "Peter Njuguna Gitau",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the Vote presented by the Minister by raising a few points. One of the observations I made concerns the Fund of Kshs1 million to be established in every constituency. The amount of money in that Fund is not enough. This is because the money will not be enough to cover the nature of activities that we intend to introduce in our areas. One of the activities that we intend to bring to our youth is the non-football activities. However, we need to add others like wrestling, athletics, volleyball and netball. Therefore, being aware that these are some of the activities that we need to cover, we should also look at things like offices that we need to put in place. We should think of the personnel, the salary structure and other things in order to make our offices in the constituencies viable and productive. The release of the Kshs1 million to every constituency will be of great help to us because this is going to be a new venture and we need to start the whole thing with a lot of commitment and rendering actual service. With regard to the committees that we are going to set up, we need to have guidelines immediately so that we are clear about the composition and membership of those committees. On the issue of stadia, every constituency must have a stadium. Where there is no land, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports should liaise with the Ministry of Lands to get land, and that land should have a title deed, so as to curb the problem of land grabbing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to sports officers, we should not say that one officer should serve three constituencies. We have our middle level colleges like the Teacher 1790 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 10, 2008 Training Colleges (TTCs), where we have very good athletes and sportsmen. People should be trained there. We should take sports officers on a crash programme for three or six months, and after that they should be taken to the field to train our people. On the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), the terms and conditions have not been very helpful in the sense of enabling and attracting our youth to go for the money to improve their welfare. The terms must be revised, so that they are geared towards attracting the youth to acquire the funds to assist them in whatever activities they want to undertake. On the issue of polytechnics, we need to have prudent managers, who should undergo interviews so that we can also improve the standards and performance in our polytechnics. Every constituency should have, at least, two polytechnics with well qualified staff. We should create an inspectorate in every district, where possible, so that quality and effective teaching is maintained in these polytechnics. We should also have computers and electricity, so that the youth are given the best learning environment. We should also think about accountability in these polytechnics. We should introduce account auditors, who will frequently check the use and management of our funds in these institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to retention of our glory internationally, because our nation has known as a sporting nation for a long time, we need to have consistent assessment of the progress of our athletes. We need to defend our image gallantly, and the Ministry should be at the forefront by way of staging competitive events where our youth will congregate. We should also think of having a day when we can remember past and present athletes, who have given this nation a very good image internationally. I recall one, a Mr. Nyandika Mayuru, who ran bare-foot in Australia in earlier years, yet this person does not feature anywhere in our history books. It is high time the Ministry of Youth and Sports introduced a day for the purpose of us recognising the contributions made by such people. On drugs, we were almost embarrassed when our athletes went for the Olympics in Greece, and one of them was almost expelled. We should have our medical facilities with our own standards, so that when our athletes are going out they are examined. If they are found to have taken prohibited drugs, they should not be allowed to go out and spoil our name. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of the Olympics, the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and Sports should also be giving us an update on the preparedness of our teams. By now we should have known the athletics team, the boxing team and other teams that are likely to compete for our nation. With regard to raising of funds for these teams, we should not wait for the 11th hour to solicit for funds from development partners. All systems must be put in place for collection of the required money in good time. If we paid a lot of attention to supporting the youth in this nation, we will see better and more dynamic teams prepared by our nation, not necessarily from the armed forces. Our polytechnics will be able to provide better equipped athletes. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}