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"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "and other organized gangs all over the country! These groups are formed because the youth have no place to apply their energies and education. Some of them have graduated from colleges. Take teachers, for example. We do have in excess of 60,000 teachers who are qualified 2592 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 18, 2007 from teachers' training colleges, who are unemployed today. Likewise, we do have more than 25,000 people who have graduated from our medical colleges. We have thousands more from various institutions, who are idle and restless. The Government has taken measures to improve our economy with the hope that the economy can absorb some of these people. But the rate at which they are absorbing people into formal or informal employment is very low. You can remember the days when you could walk to Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC) and get a loan to start your own business. That is informal employment. There were days when you could walk to the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and get money to buy a shamba and grow crops which you could sell and employ yourself and your family. Those days are gone. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today, if you borrow money from AFC you are likely to lose your shamba because the interest rates are very high and the returns on production are very low. Therefore, you stand a chance of losing the shamba . Where I come from, the Gusii Highlands, and in many parts of this country, there are no shambas . I have four sons and four daughters but I only have a half an acre of land. If I have to subdivide that land to my eight children, there will be no land. There will not be enough land for them to build their houses. What I am saying is that, since this Government has plugged those leakages for revenue collection and since they have instituted measures of good governance in the expenditure of our resources, we can mobilise resources to employ the 250,000 youths per year. It is not a very high cost. If the Government was to employ 250,000 people at an average gross salary of Kshs10,000 per month, it would cost this Government only Kshs30 billion. That is only half of the amount which was lost in Anglo Leasing deals. That amount is only 25 per cent of the money we lost in the Goldenberg scandal. That is less the amount that we lose in cases which are instituted against the Government and which the Government does not defend in our courts. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what would that Kshs30 billion realise or achieve for this country? It will create employment for our children. For example, they could be employed to construct roads, dams, prepare water springs and to create forests. They can be employed to do nearly everything. For example, we want to expand our airport. Why do you want to import machinery? We can employ 10,000 people in Embakasi and that airport can be expanded two or three times in a year. Those people will expand the airport using their energies and in turn, provide for their families. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in recent times, private institutions have made exorbitant profits. For example, two years ago, Barclays Bank posted Kshs3.1 billion in profits. Last year, it posted Kshs4 billion in profits. At the same time, it was retrenching its workers. Why does this Government want to encourage people to take money from the poor people so that it can be shared by a few shareholders of such a bank? Recently Safaricom posted Kshs17 billion in profits. Safaricom is owned by Telkom Kenya, Vodafone and Mobitelea. Three partners! The portion owned by Telkom Kenya is 60 per cent. That translates to more than Kshs10 billion in profits that could be given to Telkom Kenya, whereas Telkom Kenya is currently in the process of retrenching its employees. Do we have any sense of morality in this country? Do we have any conscience when we retrench 20 or 30 year old persons? Where does he or she go and yet you are making such profits? What is happening to our country that we must take away from those who do not have or have little and give to those who have more? If Telkom Kenya wants to use the Kshs10 billion that it is getting to create jobs, they can create 80,000 jobs a year at a salary of Kshs10,000 per month, per person. That is what I am talking about. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we were to employ 250,000 people on the model of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), that is, 500 from each constituency, we would employ 105,000 people. The balance can now be shared out on the basis of population, education July 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2593 standards, qualifications and marginalisation. There are areas in this country where there are no people employed formerly by this Government. Those areas could be taken care of. That will inspire our youth who are going to school because they know that at the end of their education, they will get something to do and earn a living. That will have a major impact. It will actually eradicate poverty. It will have a multiplier effect and the economy will grow very faster. It will remove the restlessness of our youth and reduce crime in this country. It will make our private companies share out in social responsibility. They will be seen to be contributing towards the welfare of the people of Kenya. In fact, it will raise life expectancy substantially. As you know, since job vacancies started dwindling, life expectancy in Kenya reduced from 65 years on average to 42 years today. This is because people have no means to fend for themselves. They do not have means to access good health care. People cannot provide shelter for themselves. If the Government was to boldly address this issue, the benefits would be enormous. In fact, the benefits would translate to an overwhelming support for our system, whereby, we create profits for private enterprises. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we do not take that kind of action, next time, people are going to rise up against this profiteers like Safaricom, some of the banks and organizations like breweries who make a lot of money and they are at the same time retrenching our youth. We would be able to get Mungiki out. The members of Mungiki are our youths. They are our children. Except for those who have committed violent crimes, we should rehabilitate them by providing them jobs. That would be an alternative to extorting money from matatus . They would have a job to do and provide for their families and themselves. I am sure that, that kind of approach can be useful. This is not a new concept. This thing was done in the United States of America (USA) during the depression. They created \"the American New Deal\" and they were able to employ people to do some of the jobs that I have mentioned. They were able to almost wipe out crime committed by young people in that country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, why can we not adopt this kind of system which has worked elsewhere? Why can we not try to make use of our youth? What is the point of siring children, educating them and directing them to situations where they will end up committing crime? With those few remarks, I beg to move. I would like to ask hon. J.M. Mutiso to second the Motion."
}