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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for according me this opportunity to make my remarks on the Speech that was delivered by His Excellency the President during the Official Opening of this House. At the very outset, I want to join my colleagues who spoke earlier in welcoming us to this Session after a very long recess. This has been the longest recess this House has been subjected to for the 11 or so years that I have been in this House. It was a long recess that saw many events come and go. The most notable of them all was the November 21st Referendum where this Government suffered a humiliating defeat. I hope and pray that they have learnt from that defeat, that this country does not belong to the Government, but that it belongs to the people of Kenya. I hope you have learnt that you may be very many here, but outside there you are very few. If you have not learnt a lesson from that referendum, you will have yourselves to blame. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, going back to the Speech, many will agree with me that it was a very flowery Speech with very many promises to Kenyans. The President has always 172 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 29, 2006 done that. In fact, I want to congratulate him for putting together a very good team of speech drafters who always write very good flowery speeches. It is very impressive. I have served in this Government and I am very sure that not even 30 per cent of what he said here will be implemented. This is a Government that has been known to give lip service and false promises to Kenyans. Kenyans are tired of these rhetorics. A good example is what the President said about the issue of youth. He said that the youth of this country will be fully integrated in the economic activities of this nation. When he said that I stopped and wondered: \"When did the President start believing in the youth of this country?\" Right from day one, when he was appointing his Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, he picked retirees who are 60 and 70 years old and put them in positions of power. He has a bloated Cabinet of 33 hon. Members, and 12 of them are above 70 years old, while another 12 are above 60 years old. How many youth are in this Cabinet? If he was looking for youth, why could he not go for Mr. Kiunjuri or Alfred Nderitu for that matter? Why are the old men messing up his Government? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am telling the youth of this country: \"Be warned, this is a Government that has no time for the youth\". It is high time we stood up to be counted. We are not saying that we will not wait for 2007. We hope it comes sooner than that and we will take over the leadership of this country so that we can take care of the issues pertaining to the youth. We all know that the idea of forming a Ministry for Youth Affairs was an afterthought. Why did he not do this in 2003 when he was forming his first Government? This is child's play. He is not serious! This Government is just trying to give the impression that it cares about the youth because it knows that elections are just around the corner and it has now discovered that the youth are about 72 per cent of this country's population. I want to tell you that you are in trouble! That 72 per cent of Kenyans will definitely vote against this Government. That you can rest assured. No doubt, I am one of them and I want to tell you that you can rest assured that you will not get any votes from the youth. You have let us down and we are disappointed with you! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to comment on the constitutional review process. When Kenyans rejected the Kilifi Draft in the November 21 Referendum, it was a clear demonstration that they had no confidence in this Government steering the constitutional review process. So, when the President came here and told us that he has formed a group of eminent Kenyans, who is eminent? What criteria was used? Who decides who is eminent? When I saw the Chairman of the so-called Committee of Eminent Persons addressing a Press conference and saying that, amongst other things, they have been mandated to find out why the Kilifi Draft did not go through, I just laughed and said: \"This Government has a National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS). You do not need to form another group to tell you why you lost the Referendum. The NSIS will give you that information. That is what they are paid to do!\" Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, that is another gimmick of wasting taxpayers' money. We have no confidence in that team of Eminent Kenyans. If the President was serious about giving this country a new Constitution after he lost the Referendum in what they called the \"Government Project\", he should have humbled himself, sat down with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), leaders who represent the views of the majority of Kenyans, and map the way forward. The Committee of Eminent Kenyans will not take us anywhere. It is a waste of Government resources and I think we should reject it in totality. The Government is giving Kenyans lip service with regard to the war against corruption. I want to agree with Mr. Raila that Kenyans have been given a bad cheque. It amazes me that, after three and a half years, after assuming power, we are still talking of prosecuting old cases. Shame! What a shame? Why did we not do that in 2003? Why did we wait to have our own cases; to pretend that we now want to prosecute old cases? This is a Government that took over leadership on a platform of zero tolerance to corruption. One wonders: Why are there new cases of March 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 173 corruption? I heard one Minister say that they have prosecuted 150 cases. When Kenyans complain about corruption, they rush to roadblocks, film traffic officers taking bribes of Kshs3,000 or Kshs5,000 cases, take them to court and say that they are prosecuting corruption. That is not the corruption that we are talking about! We are talking about corruption that has brought the economy of this country to its knees. Prosecuting policemen who take Kshs2,000 from matatus is not fighting corruption! Let us start from the top, as the President himself promised. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding insecurity - and I am happy that the Leader of Government Business is here - I would like to tell this Government that the people of Kenya have lost confidence in its ability to provide them with security. The first and topmost responsibility of any Government is to ensure the security of its citizens and their property. How can you convince Kenyans that you can guarantee their security when there are mercenaries roaming our streets? They have been identified---"
}