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{
    "id": 246138,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/246138/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Khamasi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 300,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Lyula Khamasi",
        "slug": "daniel-khamasi"
    },
    "content": "I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. It is a ritual which we go through every year. When we shall be discussing the Minister's Financial Statement, we shall have a lot to say about it regarding the various things he said in that Statement. Also, when we shall be discussing each individual Ministry's Vote, there is a lot that we shall say. What I observed is that, as we approve the 50 per cent that the Minister has come here to request, there are major spenders on this list. They include the Office of the President, Ministry of Finance, Department of Defence (DOD), Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. We even now have to approve 50 per cent for the Ministry of Youth Affairs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the biggest culprits by the end of the day, in terms of wastage, are the same Ministries. In fact, when it comes to wastage, the Office of the President is the biggest June 22, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1577 culprit and yet they are supposed to lead by example. I do not know why, when the Controller and Auditor-General comes up with his report, you find that the biggest criminals appear to be those Ministries. We are yet to see the value of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) which is supposed to curb such wastage. It started its operations quite a number of years ago and, to date, they cannot stand here proudly and tell us what they have done. Who have they ever brought to book regarding the wastage that we see every year? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to let the Minister for Finance know that the question of the Ministry of Education which has got the biggest share of our national income had a line on constituency bursaries. During the Financial Statement, the Minister said that he is abolishing it and transferring it to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). That is misplaced and I think he should think about it again because the Ministry of Education has the framework and structures which can properly manage bursaries but not CDF. We are completely refusing to know the background and the reason why we established CDF. We are now bringing in other issues which are completely irrelevant. The Ministry of Education should be left alone to do what it knows best. One of those things is how to manage bursaries. The Minister cannot remove such an important exercise from the parent Ministry to CDF and yet he is not even indicating how much money he is removing from that Ministry and giving it to the CDF. That is an anomaly which the Minister must address very seriously because we are making a very serious mistake. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, I am not sure whether we want to repeat the mistakes which have been made by the previous regimes. We must have a proper legal framework through which those monies will be disbursed. We are not going to repeat the idea of giving women groups money which they cannot account for and there is nowhere we can take them to task. It is important that there must be a proper legal framework so that the monies are distributed equitably among constituencies. I am not suggesting in any way that, that money should come to the CDF, but I am saying that it must go out to each and every corner of this country through a properly set up legal framework. If we do not do that, we are going to end up in the same mess like the previous regime; which handed out monies to women groups. People pocketed the money and did not account for it. I hope that the Minister for Youth Affairs will be looking at that issue very fairly. We do not want it to be a discretion of one individual in the name of a Minister. We want the money to trickle down to every corner of this country, in order to help the youth. As I said, we will debate every Ministry's Vote when the time comes. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}