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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to contribute to this Motion. On the outset, I would like to state that we are debating the Presidential Address that contains the exposition of public policy. From the very beginning, the Speech was fantastic with flowing good words. However, if you read it carefully, you will find a lot of lamentations in it. This is simply because the truth as they say, has been criminalized. We say what we do not do and do what we are told not to do. Having said that, there is an element we must also correct as a House. When the President read out his Speech, he was opening \"last year's Session\". He referred to the previous year of the Third Session during the State Opening of Parliament. We must keep our records straight. The business before the House from now on is supposed to be on the Fifth Session. Therefore, we need to amend the Speech by deleting \"Fourth\" and replacing it with \"Fifth\", so that we can be consistent and fair. We are dealing with legitimate business before us in a Session that the President opened. Otherwise, we will debate the Speech the President made here last year because he talked about opening the Fourth Session of the Ninth Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to go back to the comments made by Ms. Mbarire. I think it is true that being young is a crime in our society. What she forgot to tell the House is that the Permanent Secretaries who were 27 years old at that time are still in office. Those who were Permanent Secretaries at Independence are still in those positions, if not Ministers. There is a generation vacuum in this nation. We pretend to tell our young people to read because they will be the leaders of tomorrow, whose tomorrow has never come. They are the same people we read about in history and civics during our primary level. We sang for them at the helm of glory. Now, they want our children to sing for them and they pretend to serve the youth of this nation. That is why when the President talked about electronic governance, the same people clogged the process of computerization. The Treasury does not want to computerise the processing of vouchers because the truth, in terms of audit trails, will prevail. They would like to pull out vouchers from the files. They encourage corruption. Therefore, if we are serious on our issues, let us live with the times. Let us tell our youth that they are the leaders of tomorrow and their tomorrow has indeed come. That is why those people are not in a hurry to computerize Government services because some of them were born before computers were made. Of course, I know I will grow old one time. When I demand to be heard as a young man, I am told that my time has not come and I am too young to comment about issues. Even when you are old enough, you are still called a young man because they have refused to exit. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, these people will not go soon. They are here to stay, unless we demand those positions immediately. Like yesterday, they will keep on sitting on the March 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 165 youth. Nobody will listen to the youth! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say that what you could do at the age of 30 you cannot do it at 90. It is impossible and, therefore, I support the President's intervention of empowering the youth who form 70 per cent of our population and who are below the age of 30. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on corruption, I am going to draw the attention of the Chair and the House to corruption in our offices. I want to challenge anybody today to keenly read the Kenya Gazette Notice that has Government appointments and they will find that it has names from one region. In fact, you do not have to read through that gazette notice because members of a particular community are the only ones who are serving the public. We are perpetuating corruption through public appointments. I want to suggest that other Kenyans who are not appearing in KenyaGazette Notice should forget reading it. They should consign it to a central place or another area where the names come from. This is corruption at high levels. Two-thirds or three-quarters of people come from a certain region as if other Kenyans do not exist and anybody challenging me should just pick any Kenya Gazette Notice at random and read the names. They should consign them to specific areas where the concerned people come from. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are talking about a Government the President actually says is one of unity and yet it is a Government of a certain class. This is a Government of class. Unless you belong to a particular income bracket, class or age group, you will always be a past tense to them. It will never give you a hearing. That again is causing disunity. We have financial impropriety where somebody has committed a crime. I am talking about imbalances. In one case you are told you will step aside as we investigate. In some cases you will sit in office as investigations are going on. I mean, are we serving Kenya? Are we serious about fighting graft? No one beholds the truth as it will come out and that is why I always say you cannot carry your own weight. Somebody must be there to lift you and the Government has decided to lift its own weight and Kenyans are watching. They are hot on its heels and they are going to lift it sooner than later. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on Government spending there is this issue of wastage. Ministers have heard for themselves public officers in the the public service complaining that Ministers want to buy new vehicles and carpets in an era where we have people suffering from poverty. I raised the matter of limousines in 2003 and I was told that I was a daydreamer because they thought I was interested in the Government positions and offices that I did not have. Today, limousines are being brought even beyond the prescribed rates. They are still crisscrossing on our roads. Most interesting is that we have abused our offices to an extent that you go to visit your grandmother with a Government flag flying high. I compare this with primary school kids who are excited to have been bought school uniforms to go to primary schools and even put them on even on Sundays. You find a Minister on Sunday besides the small hut of his grandmother flying a Government flag. What wastage is that? This excitement must come down and let us go back to the people who elected us and give them the gift of development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the role of Parliament is to enact laws but who is to blame when it is not doing so? I want to put the Chair on notice that it also participates in terms of also giving us the agenda, particularly re-organising our own rules in Standing Orders. I do not know the last time the Standing Orders Committee met to review our sitting arrangements. I mean, is that too big an order? Are we waiting for a Constitution to come in place to review our working conditions? In other words, we are also part of the system to blame, but the Chair needs to consult hon. Members whether we should increase our working hours or not. That can be done through the Standing Orders Committee and thus reorganise Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we talk about farming, it is too close to my heart. My farmers are sitting on matured cane. Let me ask a question: Why would you want to 166 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 29, 2006 broaden productivity if you cannot harvest what you already have? SONY Sugar Company cannot take any more capacity and our farmers do not require any more motivation. They are already motivated. What we want is a market for the crops. The Minister for Agriculture, hon. Kirwa, had fantastic ideas when he started. I think he must have been punctured mid-stream. He forgot about what he was supposed to have done. Now, we have sugar being imported left, right and centre. It is a shame! We keep on talking about some things and we do other things. Farmers are lamenting. Why do we want to increase capacity if we cannot harvest what we have already? Can we do something about capacity in terms of processing what we have? The rates of payment for our produce are so meagre and that is why some farmers have pooled together and they are going to go on strike. They have vowed not to work for the rich lords to enjoy our sweat. We must improve the rates we pay our farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on insecurity we have organised and organised insecurity. The Government of the Republic of Kenya organises to create insecurity on its own people. Look at Kipkurere where a police officer is torching a house of a resident Kenyan person with an identity card, who voted for this Government. They were \"rattled\". Kipkurere people have changed their faith. At the international community we behave like beasts and yet we have a Government in place. The concerned Minister talked to the Member of Parliament from Kipkurere and said that he never knew about the attack yet the Government can use its policemen to raid TheStandard while at the same time also punishing our people out there. We are saying the Government should carry its own weight and Kenyans are going to come your way soon and vote you out. That is the truth! I beg to support."
}