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"id": 228487,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Were",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Information and Communications",
"speaker": {
"id": 153,
"legal_name": "David Aoko Were",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. First of all, I would like to commend the President for the Speech that he gave on 20th March, 2007. I would like to touch on a few points that he spoke about. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to free primary education, I would like to say that, while the move is commendable, there are many problems facing it. For example, facilities in our schools are over-stretched. There are very few classrooms to cope with the large enrolment in our schools. Although many hon. Members have built more classrooms using the CDF, the problem still persists. On that note, I wish to request the Government to double or triple the CDF in the next Budget. It has played a big role in alleviating the problem of lack of facilities. We have a shortage of teachers. We have very few teachers compared to the high numbers of pupils that have enroled in our primary schools. That has become a burden to teachers. Teachers are unable to mark their books. So, many pupils are learning without any supervision from the teachers. If you check pupils books, you will find they are not marked because it is very difficult for one teacher to teach a class of 80 students and mark their books. I urge the Government to employ more teachers to alleviate that problem. There is a drop in the performance of exams in our public primary schools. In the last three years, private schools have done well because they have restricted the number of pupils to be admitted in their schools. Our public schools have performed poorly because of those problems. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our secondary schools have not been performing well because of admitting pupils who are not taught properly. Those who join Form I are not prepared. In my constituency, most secondary schools use teachers who are employed by the board of governors. Most of those teachers are \"O\" level school leavers. How do you expect Form IV leavers to teach secondary schools? That compromises the standards of education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to thank the Government for rural April 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 305 electrification. It has done well and most areas now, either have electricity or the equipment is being taken there. By so doing, I am sure that in the course of time, many areas will have electricity and small scale industries will spring up. On the communication sector, you will realise that there has been a big growth. In 2003, the number of mobile telephone subscribers stood at about 2.5 million. As we speak now, it has gone up to about 8.5 million subscribers. Internet users have increased from about 1.5 million at the beginning of 2003 to about three million. This is a good improvement and it shows that there has been growth in the telecommunication sector. On the building side, there is the fibre optic system which is being undertaken right now. The process of construction may begin very soon, maybe, in the next month. On the terrestrial side there is a fibre optic cable which is being laid all over the country. What will be the effect of this? This means that we will be doing connectivity all over the country up to the rural area and there will be access to all wananchi all over the country. If this happens, it will be possible to create jobs in the rural areas by setting up information communication technology (ICT) villages, which are in the process of being set up now. Last week, we had a function in Nakuru of setting up the ICT villages. If this is done, back office operations will start and information dissemination to the rural community will improve. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of insecurity, I really do not want to add much because it is so clear that insecurity in the country has risen. As we have noticed even in the headlines today, there is a problem which is immense in Mt. Elgon which will be coming for debate later. However, I realise that the police have either failed in their duties or there is something that has gone wrong. If you look at most places, you will find police concentrating on petty crimes. If you go to the rural areas, police are busy chasing people up and down because of drinking. You will find that in most cases, they arrest people who they find on the way who are not drunk, yet you find that the real thugs or bandits are not pursued. I would like to urge the police to look at this matter and ensure that security is improved. My main issue is the sugar industry. I represent a population which entirely relies on sugar and there is a danger. When we took over the Government in 2003, a tonne of sugar-cane cost Kshs2,015. Mid that year, the amount paid per tonne reduced to Kshs1,750. As we speak now, payment to the farmers has slightly gone up to Kshs2,100. If you look at it over the four years, you will realise that the farmer has lost. He has lost a great deal compared to other cash crops where you find that the growth in earnings has gone up twice or thrice. The sugar-cane farmer has lost too much during this period. We have a big problem! We have had safeguards on Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Sugar from the COMESA has been imported into the country for all these years but we have had a limit which we accept every year. Come March, 2008, this safeguard agreement will be terminated. When that happens, it means that sugar coming from outside will do so freely and in any quantity. You will realise that sugar coming from outside is very cheap. It is less than half the cost of what we are buying it at, in this country. When that happens, I see danger written ahead. It is a very big problem! Six million Kenyans depend on sugar farming. If this is allowed to happen, six million farmers are going to lose income. If it happens, even if we gave them free primary school education or rural electrification, it will be difficult for those people to survive. We saw it in the cotton industry when mitumbas were allowed to come into this country. Even those who were working in the textile industries stopped buying clothes made in the industries and ended up buying mitumbas . I have asked my farmers: \"If sugar came in at Kshs25 a kilo, would you buy that sugar or Mumias sugar?\" All have said that they would buy the sugar that costs Kshs25 per kilo. So, there is a major problem here. It is going to cause problems in terms of jobs and income. The Government 306 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 3, 2007 must look into this issue. I wonder what the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Trade and Industry are doing about this. It is something that must be addressed so that instead of the safeguard expiring in March, 2008, we extend the period for, maybe, another two years, as the Government looks into this matter. We have realised that most of the sugar industries in this country are owned by the Government, apart from Mumias Sugar Company. We do not see any initiative that the Government has taken to revamp these industries or revitalise them so that they can be able to offer products like electricity, manure or gas. Nothing has been done and there is great fear that if we do not watch out, maybe, by the end of next year, the whole of Western and Nyanza Provinces will be down economically. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to urge the Government not to ignore this because it is going to be a very serious campaign issue. If the sugar industry is not looked into, six million farmers who may comprise five million or so voters will be affected. I urge the Government to look into this matter seriously. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}