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"id": 19222,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/19222/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
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"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to urge the Minister that once that Board is in place, there is a provision for rules. Luckily, we have passed that for any rules to be operative and effective, they must come to this House. I would want to see in those rules very clear guidelines on those who are registered, their levels of operation and participation in various projects and, above all, the expectations on probity and ethics. That is because, today, there is so much work for engineers in this country that we do not have enough engineers to do it. But there are so few engineers holding so much work in this country, that the rest of the engineers have very little to do. Those few engineers holding so much work in the country are unable to spread themselves everywhere. So, what they do is this: An engineer sits in Nairobi and opens an office in Kisumu and puts there an articled clerk. Then he or she opens other offices in Kisii and Garissa and puts there articled clerks. They are busy signing false certificates to authenticate jobs that have not been properly evaluated by a qualified engineer; just in the name of the qualified engineer who is sitting in Nairobi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister should also, in this Bill which I have noticed is lacking, put a regulation that requires that an engineers who opens a branch of his firm in any part of the country or region, must ensure that, that office is run by a competent engineer like himself. That way, we shall spread competence everywhere, other than using articled clerks, using your certificate to pass as good what is not good or, where they have no competence, to pass that it is good. I think if we do that, we will be able to help this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to urge the Ministries involved in construction and infrastructure; that is, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Roads, Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Water and Irrigation, that, in fact, this Bill should have been co-sponsored by all those Ministries. That is because engineering is not just about roads. We have dams, boreholes, houses, power pylons, extension of rural electrification and irrigation. All those require engineering practice and good engineering services. There is hardly anything in this Bill that talks about regulation of engineers involved with irrigation or energy. Why do we still have people climbing poles to siphon oil from transformers, when our engineers can insulate us from that? It is not available here and we want that. I want to urge the Minister that after this Second Reading, it will still be necessary for those line Ministries to sit together and scan through the Bill and enrich it even more, so that we are not just talking about engineering roads. That is because roads are just a small segment of what engineering is all about."
}