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"id": 229390,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/229390/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mrs. Mwendwa",
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"speaker": {
"id": 275,
"legal_name": "Winfred Nyiva Mwendwa",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the President's Speech. I was very encouraged to hear that the Government is considering the issue of secondary education. I would recommend that there be a provision in the Budget for the Government to provide free secondary education. If the Government cannot afford to pay fees for Form One to Form Four students, it could pay fees for Form One and Form Two and then the others can be given bursaries. This will be very helpful because secondary education is proving to be very expensive, especially to the poor people. It would be very encouraging if we could have secondary school fees waived. This big burden would be reduced from the shoulders of poor parents. Most of these children are bright, but their parents cannot afford school fees. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to remind the Ministry of Education that there are thousands of certificates being withheld in schools because the students had not cleared their balances. It would be a very good gesture if the Government would clear the outstanding balances so that these students would be given their certificates. The fact that one has left his certificate in school because 68 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 22, 2007 of being unable to clear outstanding balances shows that the student comes from a poor family. Indeed, they cannot be engaged in any employment without those certificates. When they go looking for jobs they are told to produce their certificates. Therefore, they remain unemployed. This is grossly unfair to these children because they did not apply to be born in less fortunate families. When we are talking about secondary education, the first thing that should be considered is the possibility of waiving the outstanding balances. These children should be given their certificates before we can even start to discuss the issue of providing free secondary education. Another problem is the distances between schools. It would be very helpful if we had many day secondary schools. You will find that the distance from one school to another is very big in the arid and semi-arid areas. I would recommend that the Ministry helps to build day secondary schools. We are doing the same with the CDF funds. Boarding schools are expensive and they are located very far apart, especially in arid and semi-arid areas where poverty is prevalent. I would recommend that we join hands with the Ministry to have more day secondary schools. If I build one secondary school with the CDF funds, I think the Ministry should also put up another one. If we have free secondary school education, but the schools are not there, this will not help especially in the arid and semi-arid areas. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in his Speech the President said that the economy has improved by 6 per cent. When we talk to our people in the countryside regarding our economy, they think we are talking about heaven because poverty has increased. Some of these people cannot afford second- hand clothes. The issue of mitumba used to be a joke, but today they cannot afford these mitumba in areas where the poverty index is very high. Let us, therefore, have economic growth coming from the bottom and not from upwards. It is people in urban areas that feel the economic growth and not those at the bottom. Mr. Speaker, Sir, with regard to agriculture, we do not have a national food policy. I am saying that because whenever we have plenty of rains, we have adequate food reserves. But when the rains fail, we have no food! A nation which cannot feed itself is not worth its name. We must formulate a national food policy. The Ministry of Agriculture, the Office of the President and the Ministry of Water and Irrigation should be given sufficient funds to undertake irrigation and provide security. Without irrigation, we will always talk about food shortage, famine and relief food \"until cows come home\"!. If it was possible, I would recommend that our army be used to construct dams and set up huge irrigation schemes. Every now and then, we spend a lot of money buying relief food to distribute to drought-stricken people. Why do we not use that money to set up irrigation schemes that can feed our people? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would also like to talk about the Women Enterprise Development Fund. We are very happy and we support that Fund, together with the Youth Enterprise Developmen Fund. But we have had similar funds for women and youths before. Unless those people are properly trained, they may not utilise those funds. Some of that money should be used to train women on how to handle their businesses. If that money is given to women and they do not know how to conduct business, they will never repay that money. Since that money will be in form of loans, I am sure it will be repaid by hon. Members of Parliament, because those people are our constituents. Therefore, I advocate that, before those funds are disbursed, the beneficiaries should be educated on how to handle small-scale businesses. They should know that, that money is not actually theirs. It will only be theirs if they repay their loans. Therefore, that issue should be taken very seriously, so that people can benefit from those funds. That is one way of alleviating poverty in this country. But it will leave no mark, whatsoever, if the disbursement of those funds is not done properly. With those few remarks, I beg to support. March 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 69"
}