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"id": 222956,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/222956/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. ole Metito",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Youth Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 199,
"legal_name": "Judah Katoo Ole-Metito",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this very important Bill. I promise not to take as much time as my good friend, Mr. Muturi. This is a very good Bill, is long overdue, because employment is the source of livelihood of each one of us. I just want to address myself to about four issues relating to employment, the first one being discrimination in employment. This aspect is captured under Clause 5, the Second Part of the Bill. The proposal that employment should not be tied to discrimination, but should rather be handled in the manner indicated in the Bill, is really, welcome. However, as is the practice today, there is certain information that is sought from people applying for jobs by their prospective employers which, to me, looks discriminative. Part of this information is about the age of the applicant. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at advertisements in today's newspapers, you will see that wherever a job has been advertised, there is the element of age limit as one of the qualifications. For all the jobs being advertised, you will always see a minimum age limit of about 40 years. Even in order to be recruited as chief of a location in this country, you must be over 35 years old. To me, that is discrimination. We are discriminating against a certain group in society, 1244 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 9, 2007 which is the youth. In most cases, people have all the qualifications for jobs except the age factor, and one fails to get the job because of one's age. In effect, we are widening the unemployment bracket in the country. Currently, 67 per cent of the unemployed people in this country are between 15 and 30 years of age. If you look at that percentage, you will agree with me that we are discriminating against a very important group of our society, who are the youth. It is alarming to see that 67 per cent of unemployed people in this country are between 15 and 30 years old. That notwithstanding, we still give age as a requirement for one to be employed. Therefore, there should be a provision in this Bill to ensure that employers, including the Government, do not put age as a requirement for one to acquire a job, if one has met all the other qualifications. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another aspect of discrimination which, in my view, must be discouraged through this Bill, is that about experience. By making experience an employment qualification, we are discriminating against young people who have just graduated from colleges and universities. In every job advertisement, you are told that you must have a minimum of five years' experience. I think that is not logical. How can one get experience before getting the job? You are a young graduate. You have all the academic qualifications for the advertised job, be it in the private or public sector, but you are denied the chance to apply for it just because you do not have experience. Employers require applicants to have experience of between five and 10 years for a job that you are yet to get. That should be discouraged. We must make a provision in this Bill to make it law that no employer, be it in the private or public sector, should be telling people that they must have a certain number of years of experience in a given job. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the third aspect, which, in my view, is discriminatory in the employment sector, is tribalism or language. This issue has been indicated under Clause 5. I can see that there is language. I want to emphasise the fact for that for some of the jobs that are being advertised, one is required to be fluent in certain languages. That is encouraging tribalism. When a job is advertised and one of the qualifications is that one should be fluent in, say my native language, or Kikuyu or Dholuo, that requirement alone is discriminative against certain groups of people from applying for that job. That is very bad. We are actually trying to get rid of tribalism in this country. So, a provision should also be put in this Bill to discourage that practice. Looking, mostly, at the public sector, even hon. Members have raised the concern in this House that there are Government Departments and parastatals which do not have the face of Kenya in their job line-up. You can actually find a Government Department or parastatal, not once or twice or thrice, which does not have the face of Kenya in terms of the job line-up. So, we should encourage, through this piece of legislation, every Government Department or employment sector to try its level best to ensure that the face of Kenya is reflected in it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue I want to talk about is employment relationship, which is captured under Part II of the Bill, starting from Clause 8. We have, especially in the private sector, so many employers who have not had any good relationship between themselves and their employees. This is more so in the tourism sector. The tourism sector is earning this country very good revenue. However, in terms of employment relationship, it has not been one of the best. I will give examples of institutions in my Constituency of Kajiado South, specifically in Loitokitok. We have some tourism-related organisations which engage in eco-tourism activities or tourism and conservation, but they have not been good in terms of employee-employer relationship. Let me pick on the African Safari Club as the first example to illustrate my point. The African Safari Club has not been treating its employees, who are the local people, very well. This is because the company normally employs people on casual basis. I am happy this issue is actually May 9, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1245 articulated in this Bill. But I would like to emphasize that we should protect the employees from such companies and organizations. For example, the African Safari Club - and I know there are so many other companies of this sort in the country - employs people mainly on casual basis for long periods of time. You will hardly find permanent workers in that company. One signs a contract to work as a casual employee for 90 days, but on the 89th day, it is terminated and then he or she is sent home for a week. He or she is then told to re-apply for the job. This company keeps repeating this over and over again. As a result, you will find many employees who have worked in that company as casual employees for over ten years. I think we should have a piece of legislation in this Bill, to protect those people, so that we can set the minimum number of years that one can work as a casual employee in any organization. Even the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is doing the same. That is why I am talking about the tourism-related organizations. There are KWS employees in the Amboseli National Park who have been on casual employment for 12 years. I think we should look for ways of protecting our casual workers. We should ensure that one can only be a casual employee for a specific period of time before being confirmed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in many institutions, especially the private sector--- I will cite tourism-related institutions because they provide employment in the rural areas, but they do not treat their employees very well. Most of these institutions also do not allow their employees to join trade unions. I think it is vital that this Bill ensures that once one is employed for three or so months, he or she is entitled to join a trade union, as a worker. This is because we know the importance of these unions as far as workers are concerned. We should discourage private entrepreneurs or investors from denying--- When some employees who are enlightened about the importance of trade union matters try to advocate for their right to join trade unions, they are victimised and sacked. So, this Bill should ensure that every employee, whether in private or public sector, has a right to join a trade union. Any investor who tries to deny them that chance should face the full force of the law. The third issue that I would like to talk about is that of fixing minimum wages. This is addressed in Part 4, under Clause 17 of this Bill. When it comes to employment, whether one is being paid a wage or salary, we should actually set, in this Bill, a minimum amount of money that one can be paid considering the cost of living in our country. I have a lot of first-hand information, especially in my area, about private investors who pay employees very low wages. Some people who are employed live in the same conditions as those who are at home without jobs. So, I would plead with the Minister for Labour and Human Resource Development to actually set in this Bill, the minimum amount of money that one can receive as a casual or permanent employee. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are also issues of dismissal and termination of services. Often hon. Members ask a lot of Questions in this House regarding their constituents who have not received their dues for up to ten years since they left their employment. It is good that we do justice to our people by ensuring, through this Bill, that once one is dismissed or the contract is terminated, the employer has got a minimum number of days to pay him or her. This Bill has indicated in Clause 24 that \"as soon as practicable.\" When we talk of \"as soon as practicable,\" and upon the death of the employee, an employer can take even five years before paying termination dues, because, in his wisdom, he might think that, that is \"as soon as practicable.\" I think we should specify the duration of time, especially where one is dismissed. In fact, one should be paid his or her dues within a maximum of 14 days. This is because when the employer is dismissing an employee, he or she must have thought over it in advance. So, he or she should also be prepared to pay one his or her dues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should also ensure that every employer pays his or her employees their gratuity. This is because I think it is required by the law that every employee 1246 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 9, 2007 on contract employment is supposed to receive gratuity at the end of every year. I do not think that all the employers are making this payment. In my constituency, the main source of employment is the tourism-related activities. We have lodges, camps, hotels et cetera. I do not think that gratuity is paid to the employees in those institutions. I think we should actually make it mandatory, through this Bill, that every employee, whether in the public or private sector, receives the 31 per cent of his or her salary as gratuity. I know that even hon. Members here are not paid gratuity. I think it is the high that everybody got his or her own gratuity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I conclude, I would like to talk about the issue of the certificate of service. I really welcome that move under Clause 51. It is very important that upon leaving your employment or having served for four consecutive weeks, as stipulated under Clause 51, the employer should issue the employee with a certificate of service. This is highly commendable. I know it is going to help the employee in search of greener pastures. It should be mandatory that the employee receives it. It adds up to the social prestige. It is an honour for the employee. It is a sign of saying, \"thank you\" for the service he has delivered for that prescribed period. It is a recommendation that gives that person the motivation that life does not just end there. He has something to start with. It should be made mandatory that all employers should issue employees with certificates of service upon the end of their work contract. I think that is a welcome move. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}