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{
    "id": 233607,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/233607/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 156,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Muturi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 215,
        "legal_name": "Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi",
        "slug": "justin-muturi"
    },
    "content": "Of course, we have no quarrel with corners or villages being \"shaken\", especially with electricity now. We would appreciate if every corner of this Republic is \"shaken\" with electricity. Indeed, I want to welcome and congratulate the Minister for Energy for having been reinstated. However, the point I am making is this: Do not be carried away by these high-sounding phrases like \"we are going to shake this\" or \"National Youth Enterprise Fund is going to ---\". You create them and then you go to sleep. You come and announce them and then you take a back seat. The youth in the country are asking us, as their representatives, what we are expected to do in order for them to access the youth funds. There has been all manner of stories and excuses until the Permanent Secretary came out to admit that there is nothing he can do. Indeed, he cannot even access it from Treasury. That was the admission by the Permanent Secretary and the reason why he cannot access it is because there is no legislative or legal framework. I want to urge the Minister for Finance if, indeed, there was seriousness in the creation of that National Youth Enterprise Fund, that the legal mechanism for operationalising that fund be put in place immediately as we pass the Appropriation Bill so that we can move away from the era of the usual rhetoric that we have had in the last four years and go into practicals. The Minister for Finance would know very well that when we are discussing this particular Bill, some of us are quite concerned that having passed the Vote on Account we gave the Government some money. We are concerned about how those funds are being or have been so far utilised. If, indeed, those funds were utilised properly, would we have been seeing the kinds of reports that we were seeing from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights about misuse of State resources by Government Ministers while campaigning for non-parliamentary political parties, which some opinion polls have even called the Government? I think there is total confusion on that side of the House. Can the Government begin acting on some of those reports because those are public funds? We are concerned that when the misuse of public resources is pointed out to the Government, everybody, even those who have not cared to scrutinise and read the reports, are up in arms to defend those people mentioned. Let us not defend the indefensible. When people fly in military or police aircrafts, it is there for all to see and then next thing you say is that you were paying for it. The truth of the matter is that they never paid. They have even been billed because they never paid and yet in the public or even on the Floor of this House they come and say that they were being paid for. We want to urge the Minister for Finance to tighten the screws on some of these Ministries to ensure that these public resources that we are appropriating do not go to waste. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in fact, as we debate this Appropriation Bill, I am at risk of letting the cat out of the bag. I want to question the logic of my very good friend, the Minister for Information and Communications statement that the Government only owns 60 per cent shares within Safaricom through Telkom Kenya. That is all they are concerned about. According to them, the rest belongs to Vodafone PLC, yet Vodafone PLC confirmed that they own only 35 per cent. Surely, it must be the concern and interest of any caring Government Minister to want to find out---"
}