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"id": 239735,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Bifwoli",
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"id": 208,
"legal_name": "Sylvester Wakoli Bifwoli",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this good and noble Motion. Kenya is on record that it is providing free primary education. The reason why the Government decided to offer free primary education to Kenyan children is that they knew that most Kenyans are poor and, therefore, many children do not go to school, but just sit at home. It is true that with the introduction of free primary education, if you go round the country, you will find so many children in school. These children used to be at home because their parents were not able to raise school fees. The free primary education programme is a very good idea and the question of quality education should come second. What is important is to have education. Now, we are urging the Government not just to pay school fees for orphans, but also to provide free secondary education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the day Kenya will provide free secondary education, we shall have achieved a lot. Even as a parent, you give first priority to the education of your children. It is after paying school fees for your children that you can now think of building a house for yourself. You can only build a road leading to your house after you have educated your children. This country must, therefore, behave like a parent. This Government is the parent of the people of Kenya and we are asking it to give first priority to education of our children. This Government can budget to construct one road costing billions of Kenya shillings, but it cannot provide for bursaries. I do not know where the Minister for Finance came from. I do not know if he was born in Kenya. Perhaps, he grew out of Kenya. He has the audacity to remove bursary money for our children in secondary schools. I wonder what kind of a parent he is. If he really is a parent he should know that one day God can call him. His children can also remain 2542 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 2, 2006 orphans and, therefore, they will need bursary the same way other children whose parents passed on need it now. Those children are supposed to be helped. Given the fact that the Ministry of Finance has denied the Ministry of Education bursary money, it means that Kenyan children have no future. Why are we educating children from Standard One up to Standard Eight and thereafter leave them to go home? Are we saying that Kenya should have semi-illiterate people who have only reached Standard VIII and have no future? What will happen to bright children whose parents are poor or have died? We shall all die, one by one! Even when you think you are man enough, you do not know whether you have HIV/AIDS or not. It is possible that all of us have it. The only difference is that we die at different times. We must think of our brothers who died before us. After all, we all know that we are going to die. Who will not die in this country? If we know that, let us prepare for our children and grandchildren who will be orphaned because of HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is there and it is killing us one by one. It is time the Ministry stood up to support this Motion. It is a Motion for Kenyans and those who are under-privileged. We speak with emotion because of what the Minister for Finance has done to us. He is selling the Government negatively. The Government has a good record of providing free primary education. But the Minister has abolished the bursary fund. I wish he was here to know that Kenyans are crying. They are pleading with the Government to reinstate the bursary fund to the Ministry of Education, if it has any sympathy for the poor in this country. How the Ministry was allocating money to us is not important! Even if one constituency was allocated more money than the other, a Kenyan child was using that money to go to school. We are asking the Holy Spirit to go to the Minister for Finance, counsel and guide him to bring back the bursary fund. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is true that we have so many orphans in this country. But I do not share the feeling that we should only set up a fund for orphans whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS. After all, we do not know what many Kenyans die of. Doctors do not declare that so and so has died of HIV/AIDS. But what we know is that somebody has died and left behind some orphans. If we have to cater for orphans, let us do so for all the children whose parents have died. Secondly, children who have been benefiting from the bursary fund are poor, bright and needy. I feel this Motion should enable the Ministry of Education to prepare a Bill to enable us pass an Act of Parliament which will give the Government authority to educate children who are poor and, particularly, the orphans. Any Member of Parliament who listens to his electorate will attest that 90 per cent of people who visit him or her have problems with school fees. They always say: \" Mheshimiwa, I am unable to take my child to school!\" You get a child who says: \"I am unable to learn because I have no parents.\" That is so because we do not have the capacity. We cannot help all those who come to us for assistance. We urge the Government to collect enough revenue to educate every child, if we choose to. There is nothing as good as investing in education. It is better to invest in education than the properties of this world. Nobody will come and steal the brains of your child. But if you invest in cows or shops, people will come and steal them. But nobody can steal the education in your child. Kenya can export manpower to Uganda and all over the world, if we invest properly in the education of our children. This Motion is very important! I expect any sensible human being to support it. It is so important---"
}