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"id": 254112,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Mango",
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"speaker": {
"id": 288,
"legal_name": "Christine Mango",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I would like to congratulate 348 PARLIMENTARY DEBATES April 5, 2006 the President for his Address and add my voice to that of my colleagues. This country needs unity. It is only when we are united that we can stand together, address our problems and progress. However, when we are divided, the country cannot move on. This country has been independent for many years. So, we should have settled down in terms of the basic issues that affect us. We need to look at certain key Ministries and address their problems for the good of this country. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture needs to take care of our food insecurity problems. The fact that every year we have Kenyans starving, and we go about begging for food does not reflect well on our planning. It is high time we planned properly so that we have food in every corner of this country. We should make sure that every Kenyan has enough food to eat and even surplus to sell to other countries. Agriculture is the backbone of this country. Let us address the food crops as well as the cash crops problems so that every Kenyan wherever she or he is, can be well fed. For instance, we have sugar cane in my area, yet the farmers there are very poor. Does that make sense; that the farmer who grows cash crops becomes the poorest person in this Republic? Those farmers lack money to buy school uniforms for their children and take care of their medical bills. They also lack money to take care of their other needs. The Ministry of Agriculture needs to have its facts put together. My colleagues have talked about exportation of crops such as flowers and others. If we get involved in the export of crops, we should do the right things to make sure that we are ahead of everyone else. I would like to comment on education. I would like to commend our NARC Government for the provision of free primary education. The free primary education has enabled many children to go to school. However, in the process of providing the education, there are many problems we need to address. Two weeks ago when we were touring Nyanza and Western provinces, we found out that in Nyanza alone, the shortfall of teachers was at 12,000. When a province has such a shortfall, we do not expect it to perform well. In Western Kenya, the shortfall was at 6,000. You do not expect the results to be good. But this is because teachers retire or die due to natural attrition and have not been replaced for two years, yet we are dealing with the issue of creating new jobs. What is needed is replacement. Therefore, the Ministry needs to come up with a quick way of replacing retired and dead teachers. Regarding universities, they admit 12,000 Kenyans only out of the 600,000 who sit for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). Is that not wastage of human resource? It is high time we thought about developing community colleges every year, so that Kenyans can access education near their homes, instead of limiting education to where they can get bed space. If they can acquire education in colleges where they do not require bed space, that would be very good. Similarly, the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) should increase the amount it gives to students as education loans. Currently, many Kenyans cannot access loans because the money is not enough to take care of every Kenyan. Pegging the loans at Kshs10,000 is not good enough. Education facilities should be expanded. After the expansion, we should plan for the school leavers. There is no need of putting them through education and later letting them languish at home. Many youths are unemployed and feel frustrated ad we cannot take care of them. The Government needs to look into that issue. Finally, I would like to comment on the problems of infrastructure. Currently, our roads are in a pathetic situation. When you travel to Uganda and Tanzania, you will see that they have better roads than we do. That is an issue which we need to address if we have to move on as a nation. Travelling from Nairobi to Kisumu is a nightmare. We should enjoy travelling on our roads and also discover the problems. Currently, it is not possible to do so because our roads are in a pathetic situation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need energy if we are to industrialise. Recently, I read that Kenya has now imported some kind of energy generating devices. Why have we not April 5, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 349 thought of nuclear energy? It will save our forests from depletion because we will not have to cut trees in order to burn charcoal to use as fuel. We cannot think of industrialisation when we are still in darkness. Only a small part of this country has electricity. The rest of the country is in darkness. We often talk about the Jua kali sector, but do we know that it cannot develop without energy? Therefore, we need to have a visionary plan towards developing the energy sector in this country so that we do not depend only on hydroelectricity and fossil energy. We need to look for more innovative sources of energy supply so that we can supply Kenyans with better energy than what we already have. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to gender issues, in this country, women are the farmers. They are also the ones who fetch water and take care of their families and yet they are the most neglected people. Women are not even represented adequately in this Parliament and so they are a minority. Even in the public sector, they are a minority. That trend continues down the line. There is need to uplift the living standards of women in Kenya given that they form 50 per cent of our population. You cannot ignore that population of women. I take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague, hon. Ms. Ndungu for bringing a Bill that will address domestic violence. The woman has always been the punch bag when the man is frustrated. We need the woman to be given the dignity that she deserves. We need to commend the whistle blowers for pointing out corruption in our country. Corruption has left this nation poor. We have a lot of resources in this country, but we have not utilised them properly. As a result of that, we complain that we are poor. We need to fight corruption and fight the corrupt. We should recover whatever they have corruptly acquired so that this nation can move on. Let us not forget that we need to reward the whistle blowers who highlight corruption cases in this nation. If we continue covering up corruption in this country, then we are doomed. We will not move ahead. In that case, we need more brave Kenyans to blow the whistle whenever they come across cases of corruption. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when corruption is mentioned, we become very defensive. That should not be the case because corruption makes everyone suffer. Two weeks ago when I got an accident, I went to a district hospital. First of all, I was required to buy an exercise book to keep my record. I had to buy painkillers from a nearby kiosk to be injected. That shows how our medical care is in bad shape. I am talking about a district hospital and not a clinic. In this country, we really need to take care of the health of Kenyans because they are suffering a lot. There is no medicine in our health facilities and many people queue for long hours on end, but they are still not treated. Health is very important and we should address this matter seriously. The people who voted for us to come here do not enjoy the use of health facilities in this nation. We, must, therefore, tackle this problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}