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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to talk about the Presidential Speech. I would also like to thank the Chair for highlighting the 48 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 21, 2007 various roles of Members of Parliament. Many of my colleagues work tirelessly in their constituencies and Parliament. In fact, many of them are even ailing because of the work they do for their constituents. They travel up and down the country to visit their constituencies and make sure that the people who elected them are represented well. It is unfortunate that this House has not been able to go on live broadcast in this session. It is only through live broadcast that wananchi will be able to see what their Members of Parliament do in this House. As you see today, there is no live broadcast. Yesterday, it was full house because hon. Members of Parliament knew that if they were not there, they would be asked by their people: \"How come we did not see you in Parliament?\" But today, they have no way of telling whether their Members of Parliament are in Parliament or not because we do not have live broadcast. I would also like to commend the Speaker for availing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to Members of Parliament. Now, Parliament is on the web. We can proudly say that wherever you are in the world, you can see who are the Members of Parliament in the Kenya National Assembly. You can access the website, whether you are in Japan, Italy, France or America. I would also like to encourage my colleagues to set up their own websites to enable their constituents to see the work they are doing in their various constituencies. It is also a way to advertise themselves. It is only through such means that Members of Parliament can show their constituents what they are doing and to fufil their vision and mission. That way, they will enlighten our society. I think there are modern ways and means in which the Government can conduct its business. I do not think hiring 200 judges is the way to go. That is because they will clear all the pending cases and in the end, we will still have 200 judges who will have no work to do. We should go the modern way. We should go to the private sector and identify lawyers who can tackle those cases. Many governments in the world use that kind of method when they have a backlog of cases. As soon as the work is complete, they can now revert to the judges. We have the problem of backlogs because we have very few judges. Some of them are incompetent, while others are over- worked. So, we should go in that direction. What will we do with 200 judges after they have cleared all the cases? It is just a huge cost to the taxpayers and we will not benefit as a community. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the 21st Century, it is wrong for a country like Kenya to still use hoes and jembes in farming. We should modernise our farming tools. The Government should be involved in modernising our farming methods. The Government should hire extension workers to tell our farmers the way to go. I will give you an example. I come from a constituency that grows cotton. Cotton is not only grown in Nyanza Province, but also in Western Province. But nothing has been said about cotton. The price of coffee, as you can see, has risen from Kshs3 to Kshs35. But we cannot tell you the price of cotton in Kenya today. There is no price for cotton and yet, it is the key crop targeted by African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Tanzania has heavily invested in cotton. I was recently in South Africa and saw how that Government has invested in the cotton industry. They invest in form of farm inputs and extension services. It is only through such measures that we will uplift and encourage our people who had stopped growing cotton over the years, to start growing it again. By doing that, the Government will gain more revenue. By doing that, the issue of unemployment will be solved. We will solve many other problems by doing that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have heard about the introduction of the youth and women funds. That is a very brilliant idea. But what I object to is trying to channel those funds through the banking industry. Those funds should be given to groups. Those groups should then be monitored by another set of people and not the banks. If you want to borrow money from banks, you can borrow from them. But we should not compel the youth and women to go to the banks to get that money. I do not think that is the right way to do it. We should go to the constituencies and March 21, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 49 form committees. We can then identify people who can encourage other people to do business in those constituencies and give them funding. Giving Kshs1 million per constituency is not enough. We should raise it to Kshs3 million per constituency and use the poverty index to do the rest. That will uplift the living standards of our people in the rural areas. We should give them that facility and ensure that they pay back. When you borrow money, you should be able to pay it back. That is taxpayers' money and we should not charge them interest for it. We are trying to facilitate the people who cannot get assistance elsewhere. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are talking about living in a modern society. I was shocked recently when the Government revived an institution that was ten years old; I mean the Kenya Meat Commission. You pump Kshs700 million into an old machine! In modern times, we need a mobile abattoir. With Kshs250 million, you will have a mobile machine that will go where the cattle are. Such a machine will process and can that meat instead of moving those animals from all parts of the country to Nairobi. We should have bought three new machines, instead of putting Kshs700 million into an old and outdated ten-year old machine in Athi River, where even the land around has been allocated to people. We should think about modern ways of doing things. Even in Government offices today, we should not have walls. Government offices should be open-planned. That way, a Minister can see people who are working and who are not. The reason why the private sector is flourishing is because it has young people who are focused and have a vision. But you cannot bring somebody who is outdated and has no idea of modern times to uplift a system. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me talk about the districts. In my opinion, all the departmental heads in Siaya District are doing nothing! They just sit there. When you approach them to give you information about roads or water dams to be built, they claim they have no information. If that can happen to a Member of Parliament, you can imagine what can happen to the public. They talk about our CDF, which is only 2.5 per cent of the Budget. The other Government departments get 97.5 per cent. But you will never know how much money comes into the district and what projects will be undertaken and yet, you are a Member of Parliament. So, you can imagine the mismanagement of resources that go into the districts. Let us reorganise the districts and have accountability in the district headquarters. Let us put in place systems that can ensure that district headquarters are run efficiently and effectively, so that they can deliver services to the people they serve. When you talk about creating more districts and there is no mechanism of running those districts effectively and efficiently, we are just running ourselves into bigger problems. Let us reorganise and restructure the ones that we have, and then we can think of creating others. But we are expanding a system that is already failing Kenyans. I do not know whether we are going to progress in that direction. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I agree with His Excellency the President on the issue of creating day schools in our constituencies. It is something that I have seen performing. When I was elected, I was involved in the construction of such a school from Form I to Form IV. It is now the seventh best school within the district. It recently came sixth in the district because the infrastructure that is closer to the people enables students who live near the village to go to school. Moreover, the school fees is much less. You find that instead of that child going to a school that is paying Kshs45,000 per year, the secondary school in the village charges only Kshs15,000. The students are not told to compete with other students who have come from outside who will devastate them. It is, therefore, a good idea but I would like us to encourage the Ministry of Education to come up with a system that can facilitate for teachers to be provided in those schools. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), I think it should be increased. We had teething problems in the beginning, but I think for 50 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 21, 2007 many Kenyans, it is a brilliant idea. It was a big war in this Parliament to kick off. I remember that time when Mr. Salat and I were thrown out of this House because of saying: \"No CDF, no Budget!\" We had a big war in this House. I think hon. Members should take credit for having allowed the CDF to take off. It was a big war and it is still a big war because we want it to be increased from 2.5 per cent to 7 per cent. We know what benefit the CDF is doing for our people. It is creating employment and changing the face of the constituencies. If you go to many constituencies today, you will be shown CDF projects. If you ask them to show you where Government projects are, you will not see them. They do not exist! Dams are being constructed, a grader scoops once and they say that Kshs5 million was spent on the dam. There is no accountability! When they construct a road, a grader runs over the road and there is no murram on it, yet you are told that Kshs10 million was spent on that road. You look at the road and you cannot see where the Kshs10 million went on that road. However, when hon. Members are using their CDF, they are doing so in an accountable way. They are using it in a manner that even wananchi are keeping them in check."
}