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"id": 220966,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Weya",
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"legal_name": "Sammy Arthur Weya",
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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for allowing me to contribute to this Bill. I remember the time when I was much younger, when I had just come out of school. I was employed by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company Limited. Those were the days when labour laws were, really, followed more strictly than today. I remember that even within the institution I was in, you would find boards that defined to you the labour laws that regulated matters within the country. It is about time that as a nation and Parliament, we considered issues that are pertinent to what is happening in the modern times. One of those issues is affirmative action, and the other one is that of people with disabilities. We come to Parliament just because of the fact that we are able to live a normal life. We do not, really, go back to the grassroots and realise that about three million people are living with disabilities. Whatever decisions we make in this country are critical, because we can use some of those people when it comes to employment and labour, because they are citizens of this country. They are human beings. Therefore, we need to have complete respect for each individual who lives in our society. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of women is also critical in our modern day society. If we do not have women, people with disabilities and the youth represented on this Board, they will be left out when the time comes. I heard the previous speaker talk about experience in terms of what happens about experience when you appoint someone to the Board. I would like to inform the previous speaker that in today's modern times, if you go to the private sector, you will find that youthful people are the ones who are running institutions, and that those institutions are making huge profits. Those institutions are the ones which are turning round the economy of this country. So, the issue of saying that because one has not lived until he is 50 years old, or whatever age, one has no experience, does not hold water. We are living in modern times. When we were in 1458 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 17, 2007 school during our times, we never used computers in school. However, today, a child starts using a computer as early as in a nursery school. By the time he completes Form IV, he has more exposure than some of us who went through the old times. So, we must, really, look into what is happening in modern times. Saying that seven years' experience is not enough is misleading. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today, we have what we call the \"lower-end-workers\". We have to look critically into ways of ensuring that employers, including those who employ house-helps, look into their conditions. You find employers bring people who have no capacity from the rural areas to the city and mistreat them. One is given a mat to sleep on the floor. If you look at the way they live, it is, really, haphazard. We need to look at them as members of our society. Even if he is your employee, the fact that he is disadvantaged, and he has no other alternative, does not warrant you to misuse that person by paying him little money at the end of the month simply because you accommodate and give him food, knowing he will not get anywhere else. If he cannot live that way, he goes back to the village where he was suffering. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there was a time when people used to employ workers. By the time the worker comes into your house, he is given bedding of his own and clothes, so that he becomes a decent person in your house. Today, one is forced to wear his own clothes as he works for his employer. When you employ people to work for you, it is your responsibility, or that of an institution, to provide them with protective clothing and uniforms, which they are supposed to put on while on duty. Today, some of these things are being overlooked by our society. We just assume that it is the norm and yet it is not. The issue of employing somebody on temporary basis for even ten years is critical. One is employed and, after three months, he is sacked. He stays for one month and then he is told to apply for employment as a temporary worker again, because they are trying to by-pass the regulations. So, one remains a temporary worker for even ten years. Multinational corporations are now going into what they call \"handing over the responsibility of employing workers to a contractor\". They are doing this in a bid to beat what we call laws and regulations of our country. They say: \"We are sub-contracting this work, because we have found that with the regulations and laws that are in place, and what we are supposed to pay, it is easier for us to give this burden to somebody else\". When you look at the way the contractors handle workers, because the guy realises that he is going to pay somebody Kshs100 per day, and he wants to beat the system, he looks for a sub-contractor and tells him: \"Let me pay you Kshs150. You pay the workers Kshs100\". That way, he gets away with these things illegally. So, we should go further, apart from looking at the employer, and look at the person he is contracting work to and look at the way he handles the workers at that level, so that they do not beat the system. Some of the employers even lock up their workers in factory premises and run away, and claim they do night-shifts. No one monitors them. You do not find the labour officers going round. We do not want to pass laws in this House just for the sake of it. There are many laws we pass here. Once they are assented to by the President, they are just put on the shelves. No one follows up to ensure that they are implemented. No one is even interested in them. I know that we are now under pressure to pass these laws, because we want to go and show off somewhere that we have passed five laws in Kenya, which are in place, and that we are compliant. I mean, the compliance here is because---"
}