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"speaker_name": "Mr. Awori",
"speaker_title": "The Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for granting me this little time to respond to the various contributors. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want first of all to thank all the contributors to this very important Motion which was the Presidential Exposition of Public Policy of our country. It is always necessary that we leaders should accord credit where it is due and then deal with our shortcomings so that we know that our interests is the growth of our country. Nobody can deny the fact that through the current leadership of this country, democratic space has been expanded considerably. I know it has been stated that democratic space is a right for everybody and I accept that but it is not always easy for regimes to accept and observe the democratic space. This regime should be congratulated because it has accepted complete freedom of speech that has not been seen before in this country. There is complete freedom of movement in the country and above all, we have a very vibrant media that is always alert to see, inform, criticise, investigate and do all that is necessary of the media. However, democratic space must come with responsibility. There are times when over-indulgence in the freedom of any kind without considering its effects is detrimental to the building of our nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, recently, politics has taken centre stage in our lives. Everything that is done and stated is now politicised and, worse still, politics has become ethnic. This is a very sad affair because during the General Elections of 2002, we had worked in such a way that we had reduced completely ethnic divisions. This does not say that a person should not identify himself or herself with their origin. What we are saying is that we should not use ethnicity to dominate or marginalise another person. We need time to deal with issues critically. If we are looking at agriculture, for example, let us not focus on minor issues such as who is the Minister for Agriculture. There are core issues in agriculture that need to be addressed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, many hon. Members have said that there is insecurity 360 PARLIMENTARY DEBATES April 5, 2006 in the country. Indeed, there has been some insecurity. However, we forget to see the genesis of this insecurity. It is because we have politicised and ethnicised everything and this creates a problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on many occasions, we forget the point that one hon. Member has alluded to. That is the foreign agenda. The hon. Member for Laikipia West did bring out this issue. I would like to remind my colleagues here that a lot of bickering, if I may call it, a lot of differences between the leaders in this country, and a lot of what is being written, we may not realise this, but, indeed, this is a foreign agenda. The foreigners do not like to see a successful African country. They started it with Mr. Kwame Nkurumah in Ghana way back in the early 1960s, when he ushered in freedom in Africa and he started taking leading roles, emancipating and giving examples to others. The foreign people did not like this. They orchestrated the coup d'etat against Mr. Nkurumah. I am not saying that Mr. Nkurumah did not have excesses. He had excesses. However, he was the true African. It is his example that made all of us seek independence and we earned it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is now happening here in the guise of fighting corruption. I am for fighting corruption. However, right now, what we are doing is not fighting corruption. Maj. Sugow has just mentioned here that one of the things we must do is to respect institutions. We have institutions that deal with all this. However, when we look at these institutions, we look down upon them. We fail in what we do. The fight against corruption should not be politicised in the way it has been done. Frankly, it is no longer a fight against corruption. It is a question of trying to bring down the Government using other methods. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President has led this country so well that in spite of everything that is going on, the economy has grown by 5 per cent. Indeed, it is said that this has not permeated right to the grassroots level, but it is only those who do not go to the grassroots who would subscribe to the fact that the economy has not gone down. The CDF has put money in the pockets of people in the rural areas. When people talk about the Free Primary Education Programme (FPEP), they forget that there is Kshs1,400 per child in primary school which is being allocated for that purpose. That money is circulating. If it is in a place like Funyula Constituency, where there are about 25,000 pupils in primary schools, that translates to about Kshs30 million a year. That is money which was never seen there before. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a good number of hon. Members have only looked at the negative side of various issues. However, I am happy to say that quite a number of them have also pointed out various successes such as the FPEP. This has brought in 1.7 million children who would, otherwise, not have gone through primary education. That is a success. I know there is a weakness in what Prof. Mango said on the issue of shortage of teachers. This is another area where we must take charge of our policy and not to listen to foreign policy which says that we must not employ. We have not been employing teachers because we were told not to employ teachers. Yet, we have 60,000 teachers who have already been trained at the expense of the Government, and who are not in employment. These are some of the weaknesses this Government is looking into. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of health, we know that we have reduced the incidence of HIV/AIDS. There are now fewer deaths caused by this scourge. There is more hope for those afflicted by HIV/AIDS to live a good life. That is a positive thing for this country. Recently, a Ministry of Youth Affairs was inaugurated, so that it can take care of the affairs of our youth. In his Address the President said that 72 per cent of our population are people under 30 years of age. Soon the Minister for Youth Affairs will bring a Sessional Paper before this House, so that we can have a youth policy that will take care of the youth. This will remove a feeling of hopelessness from the minds of our youth. The youth need further education and economic empowerment. Although we may not necessarily get them into big companies, the April 5, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 361 proposed policy will help them. Kenyans are known for their diligence in the informal sector, the"
}