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"speaker_name": "Prof. Mango",
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"legal_name": "Christine Mango",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to the Presidential Speech. I thank the President for the Speech. However, at the same time, I would like to point out that in this country, corruption, bad governance and all the ills in this society, including ethnicity, need to be fought by all of us as Kenyans. One way we can fight these ills is through civic education. Ordinary Kenyans do not know what constitutes good governance. They need to be educated about corruption. He will then 98 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 22, 2007 know that when a chief asks to be given a chicken, that is corruption. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Kenyans need to be educated on the role of the hon. Member of Parliament. The other day I was watching television and every one was saying that hon. Members of Parliament are corrupt, lazy, have too much money to spend and too much to eat. This was a response to what Mr. Speaker said about the duties of hon. Members of Parliament. Members of the public need to be educated on the roles of the Government and hon. Members of Parliament. They can then understand who should do what and what should be done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President talked about education. I take this opportunity to thank him for the free primary education programme. However, this programme needs to have infrastructure if it is to be effective and produce results for our vision for 2030. To have effective vision for 2030, we need to start from nursery schools to primary schools to secondary schools and universities. We should put in place the right structures. With the right equipment, well-trained teachers and facilities, we can achieve our vision. I would like to echo what a colleague said about South Korea. If we want to industrialise, we must plan to have very many engineers. China has industrialised because of the numbers of engineers it has trained. You cannot manufacture a car without a person who knows the engineering mechanism of a car. The Minister for Planning and National Development needs to project what kind of manpower we need to be able to industrialise. If we just continue haphazardly, there is no way we are going to industrialise. As we talk about our vision, we need to start planning right now, so that in 2030 we will have the right manpower to take us where we want to go. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, at the moment, our university admission has remained around the magical 10,000 students. I do not know what is magic about 10,000 students being admitted into our public universities. We need to expand university capacity so that we can admit more students. Any student with a mean grade C+ is a university material. We are wasting a lot of human resource by leaving those youths on the streets without building their capacity. Therefore, we need to strengthen the polytechnics, institutes of technology and all tertiary colleges, in addition to the universities, in order to create the human resource that will propel us into 2030. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to comment on the envisaged Women Enterprise Fund, as well as the status of women in this country. Women in this country must be respected and given a chance. What usually happens is that, when a woman is relieved from her job she is usually replaced by a man, as it happened in the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). I am sure there are many Kenyan women who are qualified and who could have taken up that job. We need to engender our institutions and look at women as part of this nation and not as creatures from the outer space who do not have a place. I would like to congratulate the President for the proposed Women Enterprise Fund and the existing Youth Enterprise Fund. But those Funds must have structures to run them properly. Otherwise, the youth think that they will get the money and share it out and that is the end of the story. It needs to be sustained so that it can create the desired effect. We have different regions in this country with different strengths. Therefore, the Government should look at every region and enhance whatever crop that is grown there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to refer to the cane growers in western Kenya. Those people have been left in abject poverty because their land is tied up under cane from which they do not get much benefit. Therefore, they have food insecurity and they do not have money. Therefore, in that region, poverty is as high as 70 per cent. Unless the Government comes in to properly address that crop, which is a food as well as a cash crop, that region will continue languishing in poverty. That same region has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections. That leaves the area with many orphans. Those are our children. The Government must come up with a definite policy to take care of those orphans in terms of their education, food, clothing and so on, so that March 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 99 they can also feel like Kenyan children and not like abandoned children who will become street children and pose problems in the future. Their future must be planned. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to comment on rural electrification. Rural electrification has been rather regional in some areas. But I would like to congratulate the current Minister for attempting to spread it out. Without electricity, schools cannot perform well because the students are limited to the time they can study. They can only study at day time and not at night. They therefore, cannot perform well. The Jua Kali sector will also not progress. In such areas, poverty remains high. Therefore, rural electrification must be enhanced in all corners of this Republic to enable Kenyans to move on. There has been talk of 6 per cent growth rate. While that is okay, it is not reflected on the ground in some areas. It is like taking five millionaires and you divide their income to one million poor Kenyans. Those figures look good, but in reality, there are still people in Kenya, and in particular in my constituency, who cannot afford a decent meal in a day. To those people, the 6 per cent growth rate does not mean anything. Therefore, as we talk about the growth rate, let us get the off-shoots of growth rates spread out to the whole country. Let us have equity in socio-economic development, so that all Kenyans can benefit from the increased economic development of this country. They should not feel marginalised. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the problem of infrastructure is a major one in this country. If you travel from Nairobi to Kisumu by road, you will find that by the time you get to your destination, your vehicle is worn out and your back and neck are also aching. I would urge the Government to address the issue of roads in this country. That is the main highway from the Busia border and it should be addressed. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}