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"id": 248666,
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"speaker_name": "Dr. Ojiambo",
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"legal_name": "Julia Auma Ojiambo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to Move the following Motion:- THAT, being aware that supplies management practitioners have no law to regulate their practice, this House do grant leave to introduce a Bill entitled \"the Supplies Management Practitioners Bill\" in order to provide for training, registration and licensing of supplies management professionals and for related purposes. Recently, this House enacted a law entitled the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, 2005 in order to improve the procurement practices in this country. We, however, note that this law will not be effectively implemented until additions have been made to it. It is also notable that certain May 31, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1049 aspects of law required to operationalise it are not in place. Therefore, it is important that we enact a law to support the practitioners, who will operationalise the procurement law. I am sure that the Minister for Finance is also aware of this and he will support us in bringing this Motion to this House to strengthen the Public Procurement and Disposal Act. Until we enact such a law, it is possible that the problems that this House meant to solve when it passed the Public Procurement Disposal Act of 2005 will remain with us and continue to haunt our procurement system. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the reason why we say there is a loophole in the Act is that, that Act has not clearly defined who is a procurement professional and who, under the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, can engage in procurement and disposal activities. We know that Kenya has a lot of professionals. We have professionals like doctors, who have got their legal framework. The engineers have their legal framework and so do the lawyers. However, up to now, procurement professionals do not have a legal framework to regulate their activities. There is need for this House to seriously consider effectively enforcing the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, so that we can have professionals doing that job. We need to enact a legal instrument that can regulate the conduct of supplies management practitioners in both the private and public sectors of our country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in Sections 27 and 28 of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act there is reference to compliance with that Act, and also engagement of procuring agents. These are the professionals who should operate under that Act. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the absence of trained professionals this Act, therefore, cannot be enforced adequately. There is need for competence, integrity, certification, training and a well structured framework through which these people must operate in order to handle procurement problems in this country. We know that this country has need for more professional procurement officers. As of now, we can only apparently account for 300 practitioners. This is a very small number. Most of the people that this country depends on also train outside. Many of our professionals are trained in India, England, USA and elsewhere; although we know that our universities could offer us much more and other institutions that we have could supplement this number. We still need an instrument through which this training can also be regulated. We need solutions to our own professional problems in this country. For instance, the doctors have found their own opportunities to utilise their skills and expertise in researching their own issues. They, as a professional group, have created a framework where they can reason together, share their knowledge and practise together. So are the engineers and other professionals. It is from this premise that we are saying that professional procurement officers must also be trained. They must also look at our own local problems and try to find reasons why some of our people behave in the manner they do. They must find reasons why there is so much wastage of resources in our country. This will ensure that they are together in trying to find how best they can operate to help the Government and this nation to utilise its resources and gain in development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, home-grown solutions are always best to any given situation. Currently, there is a deficit in services that leads to a lot of loss that we must look at in our own procurement for this country. We have been told time and again - and we have read and listened to the Ministers, even as recent as yesterday talking about this country spending Kshs150 billion every year on public procurement. The professionals have told us that even with that, this country loses over Kshs30 billion because of the poor procurement system. There is need, therefore, to establish a strong legal framework to enable the Institute of Supplies Management Practitioners to effectively discharge their professional duties and mandate. They need structured training for their practitioners to be trained, not only for certificate or diploma courses but also for degree courses from undergraduate, post-graduate to Ph.D levels in the procurement and supplies 1050 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 31, 2006 management profession. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is need for a professional code of ethics. Today, our professionals are controlled by all kinds of codes of ethics from wherever they were trained. Like I have said, some of them come from other countries. They, therefore, operate according to what their instincts tell them to do in terms of what they learnt when they were being trained. They also do the same in terms of practising in those countries they come from. This Motion, this morning, seeks to bring together a structured system in which Kenya can train its professionals in procurement and examine them in the quality of work and approach that they want them to apply to our procurement problems in this country. It will also be a structured system in which Kenya can certify them and offer them certificates or degrees which we know can be adequately applied to the needs of this country during their training. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also need to regulate their practice; the manner in which they carry themselves and operate in the office; the manner in which they handle the resources of this country. This can be done by this House giving the practitioners a legal framework through which they can control themselves during their time of service. In this respect, I would like to mention that we have a very efficient Kenya Institute of Supplies Management Practitioners who can and have a code of ethics that needs to be put together and given the teeth it requires to handle their practitioners. Today, our practitioners can, during their course of work, create a problem like they do quite often during their work. This can create a lot of problems for this country. We talk about mismanagement of resources. Procurement officers are in a position where a lot of these mistakes can happen. If they do, as we have said that Kshs30 billion is wasted because of our not being able to control the operations of these people, you will find, and it has happened, that a person who has contributed to this will be sacked from one office or promoted from one position to another or moved from one office to another and he continues to operate in the same manner or even create bigger problems wherever he has been moved to. We are saying that with the structuring of the operations of the professionals in this area of procurement and service delivery in both private and public sectors in this country, we can control a lot of what we have seen happening, that has led to Kenya being branded a corrupt country where resources are being mishandled and transferred from one area to another in terms of service delivery causing inadequacy and sometimes poor delivery of services to the nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you look at our service delivery in this country, sometimes you see a lot that is not equivalent to the standards of Kenya when you think in terms of the professionals that we have and the effort that this country has put in training professionals and granting them opportunity to serve this great nation. We are, therefore, coming to this House to ask for leave so that we can introduce a Bill entitled Supplies Management Practitioners Bill. This Bill will save our nation from losing over Kshs30 billion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this proposed Bill will save this country over Kshs30 billion per year. This money can do a lot of things if channelled to the CDF. It can increase our classrooms, health centres and improve services to all sectors of development at the local level. We can use the CDF funds given to the Members of Parliament at the constituency level more efficiently. Therefore, I hope that hon. Members will look at this Motion with interest and give it the support it requires. Our professionals, who are out there, expect a lot from us. We have not given them the instruments with which to operate freely. I, therefore, move this Motion in the hope that we will be able to bring a Bill to this House to enact a law to govern supplies management practitioners. With those few remarks, I beg to move. I would like to ask the hon. J. Nyagah to second this Motion."
}