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"id": 229661,
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"speaker_name": "[The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs]",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me talk about the issue of the sale of Government houses. This is something that might have escaped my colleagues here. If you go to every district and provincial headquarters, you will find lots of Government properties - plots and houses - which are being put up for sale. One of the conditions I do not accept and agree with is that they will be sold to civil servants. You will find that if you go to, say, Marsabit District, there may be no local civil servants to buy any of those houses. These properties are held in trust in for the local people. These properties were owned previously by county council, built on trustland that is owned by local people. I think that if the Government wants to give up the ownership of houses a fund should be set aside and enable local authorities, whether municipalities or county councils, to purchase these properties and hold them in trust for the local people. We are going to end up with a few people from one or two regions of the country buying out the whole country. That is unacceptable and it is likely to create future problems. If I go to Bungoma District and find that the Government is selling 50 houses and there is no local person buying a single one because there are people there who have no money to buy the houses, how will the people feel when they see that the houses have been bought, but there is no local ownership or possession? This is something that I want to urge my colleagues here that we ask the Ministry of Housing to bring a Sessional Paper here so that we can discuss and agree on how to dispose of national assets like houses. I would also like to talk about the issue of university education. You have said it here many times before and my colleague, hon. Muturi, has said it about three times here that higher education loans must be available to all students. They must be available to students whether they are on regular or parallel programmes. They must also be available to students joining middle level colleges like Medical Training Colleges (MTCs) and polytechnics. These are public funds that are enabling Kenyans to further and develop their intellect. When they finish, they can be able to service these loans. It does not make a lot of sense to give loans to those who are paying less and deny those who are paying more. Loans should be available, particularly to students who qualify to go to university, but because of the shortage of places in our public universities, they cannot get regular intake and so they have to go on a parallel level, which is more expensive. They are the ones who are more deserving to have loans. The current management of Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) does not provide loans to those students. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President mentioned that we are going to have 200 judges for the High Court and 50 for the Court of Appeal. As a legal practitioner in this country, I would like to say that, first, we have no absorption capacity for that number. In this kind of set-up that we have, 200 judges are too many. What we require is just about 50 judges for the High Court and an extra ten for the Court of Appeal so that at any one time it can have three benches; one permanently stationed in Nairobi, and the other two rotating around Mount Kenya, western and coast regions. Keeping 200 judges on top of what we have is so costly. It is so expensive that it is going to be a major drain on the economy. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, there is no guarantee that the more judges we are going to have the better the dispensation of justice. You remember the famous case of the late hon. Angatia where his petition was heard and determined a week before Parliament was dissolved, and March 21, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 29 yet the judges were there. I think we need an orientation where judges are made to work harder than they actually do other than just focusing on the numbers. If we do that, that will be wonderful. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a Political Parties Bill that will find its way to this House. I want to urge the Minister responsible to do what we normally do when we have such an important Bill. I urge him to organise a workshop for all hon. Members of this House. Let us critically look at this Bill, so that it does not come to this House to provide tokens. We want a truly Political Parties Bill that will regulate behaviour of political parties. We want a Bill that will remove rich people from owning political parties as possessions and make this country truly democratic. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we adjourned last time, one of the things that was said here by every hon. Member was to urge hon. Ministers to visit all parts of the country. We urged them to appreciate people's needs and see how to provide better services. What have we done? Hon. Ministers have been going round the country creating more hell than appreciating the needs of our people. They market unpopular political parties in areas they are not desired. The only time a Minister visited my constituency was to open offices and make derogatory remarks about my political party. This is unacceptable! It is an abuse of State resources for a Minister to take a Government vehicle and roam around the country, marketing a political party instead of giving services to wananchi ."
}