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"id": 255062,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/255062/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute in support of the President's Speech. I would just like to say that he addressed key issues of national importance and it is up to us also, as hon. Members, and people in the Government, to see how we can support him towards realizing those goals. The President raised the issue of our performance as hon. Members in terms of how many Bills we are passing and also issues regarding the quality of the kind of Bills we get through as well as the quality of our contribution. In addition to talking about adding more time for debate, as hon. M'Mukindia has suggested, I think one of the biggest problems relate to lack of quorum and technical appearances. We are not really spending enough time even though we come to Parliament and get paid for it. So, I think one of the ways of addressing this issue is by, maybe, finding a way of checking when you come in, where you enter your name and that you will be expected to stay in Parliament for a minimum number of hours. So that there will be no issue of just making some technical appearance. Secondly, I think it is also important that we pay only those who are in the House for at least two hours. You should be able to clock in when you come in and clock out when you come out. It is also important to pay on the basis of contributions. It is not just enough to come and sit in Parliament. There must be ways of gauging Members who contribute. I am not talking about the numerous points of order as the basis for judging our contribution, but in terms of actual contribution to Motions. In other words, I am saying that we must find a better criteria of ensuring that these allowances that are paid to hon. Members in a sitting are actually justified on the basis of 170 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 29, 2006 both the time that we spend in a sitting as well as our participation in Parliamentary Debates. Other ways of promoting informed debate would be the live coverage on radio and television that we have talked about. I think that will be a way of getting us, as politicians, when we get our voices heard by our constituents and other people in the country. I think we will be more motivated to want to contribute even more. In terms of research support, we were supposed to have been facilitated with internet facilities but it is taking too long. We are almost going into the next elections without internet. As long as we are trained on how to use the internet, this is one way of improving the quality of debate because hon. Members would have an opportunity to do research on their own in order to improve on both the content of their contributions as well as the quality. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think part of the reason why many Bills are not being passed, or some of them are not going through, is because sometimes we bring our vested interests to the House. So, we will support an idea only because it supports our political orientation, it supports certain politicians, or it is not against certain people and so on. If we can deal with the issue of vested interests and base our contributions in Parliament only on objectivity, I think we will get far in terms of ensuring that we do better than we have done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have to mention, of course, the issue of better drafting of Bills, but more important is the issue of consultation. Consulting widely with hon. Members and others who have vested interests in specific issues that are of interest is important. Several Members have spoken about the youth, and hon. Mbarire, the best representative of the youth in this Parliament, spoke very articulately on the issues. The President himself has done a great deal in terms of, first, establishing the Ministry of Youth Affairs and insisting that we will have budgetary allocation as well as support for particular projects that will support the youth. I would like to throw this question back to the youth themselves. I think it is not going to be easy for them to just assume that they can have power and jobs without fighting for them or without being part of that context. In other words, it is important for the youth to understand that they must be members of political parties that are ruling or they must influence or make their presence felt in political parties. So, if they dominate political parties, then it goes without saying that a lot of the Ministers and people in positions of authority will be young people. That is not going to be possible unless they ensure that they are well-represented in organisations that are governing this country. The youth are also the best messengers in promoting national issues. They are very well placed to do that. A lot of the young people do not see their friendship in terms of ethnicity. Young people relate well irrespective of where they come from. Problems of ethnicity only begin when we get to politicians. We can take advantage of this attribute of our youth and use it in our political parties to ensure that political parties support national issues as opposed to ethnic candidates and narrow issues that are only meant to support specific groups. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, they can also use their abilities to innovate and take risks. The youth have the capacity to be dynamic. They can really support, not only the political parties that they would like to identify with, but also other organisations that offer to support them. We need to draw up programmes that will support self-employment amongst the youth. It is not enough, therefore, to just complain that things are terrible. Again, it is not just enough to complain that the youth are not being represented by politicians who are in positions of authority if the youth themselves do nothing to influence that position by way of voting. The youth need to vote for people they think will consider their unique interests. They should also go beyond that and try to do their best to change the negative image that some of them have portrayed in the eyes of the public as people who are available for sale. The youth are viewed as people who are available for purchase by us politicians. They are known to be drug users and alcoholics. They should shun March 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 171 backward traditions. Most of the time, the youth are seen as people who float excuses in order not to engage in gainful employment. There are opportunities that can be taken up and it is not enough to just cry and complain that things are terrible when the youth themselves are not doing enough to ensure that they get out of their current situation. The youth should ensure that whichever Government they support thinks about their own issues and represents those issues at all levels and spheres of life. The issue of corruption has been spoken about. It is really a big problem and sacrifices will have to be made in order to eradicate corruption. These sacrifices will require the implementation of recommendations of reports even where those recommendations touch on some of the people we think support us the most. Ultimately, the best supporters of any regime are the majority of the people who decide on who becomes a leader. Those people are clean and do not have any baggage on them. It is up to them to really talk strongly about the issues and if action is taken, we are more likely to have their support as opposed to a situation where we do not take any action. But, again, we should ask ourselves questions. Even as we accuse others of corruption, are we ourselves completely free of corruption? How do we run our Constituency Development Fund (CDF) committees? Do we put in, as Members of those committees, our own relatives, friends and political supporters? Who are in our bursary committees? When we dish out the bursary money, is it always on the basis of need? We can even pose questions to the media because they are here. It is important that they highlight cases of corruption. But do they sometimes report in a certain way as opposed to being objective? The general public often talks about corruption, but are they not the first ones to want to bribe even when it is not necessary or to give \"thanks\" even when what they got was on the basis of merit? How do, for instance, Ministers recruit people to senior positions? When you recruit on the basis of ethnicity, that is corruption. You know, corruption is not just about money. So, these are important issues and before we start blaming others about whom reports have been written, we also need to ask ourselves: Are we completely beyond reproach even as Members of Parliament? The general public and people who have been charged with the responsibility to run specific institutions in this country also need to ask themselves that question. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we, therefore, must report people who are corrupt and despise them at all costs. Sometimes we find them in church and they contribute a lot of money, say, Kshs1 million. The bishops also know that some members of the church are corrupt and yet they ask them to sit in the front row of the church. When you go to a pub and everybody knows that you are corrupt, the poor say, \"Patia mzee kinywaji.\" So, we must despise the corrupt. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support."
}