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{
    "id": 350698,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/350698/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 110,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. ole Metito",
    "speaker_title": "The Member for Kajiado South",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 199,
        "legal_name": "Judah Katoo Ole-Metito",
        "slug": "judah-ole-metito"
    },
    "content": "Let me thank His Excellency the President for the exemplary and elaborate manner in which he exposed his Government’s public policy through the Presidential Address that was delivered on the Floor of this House. For those who were in this House in the last Parliament, I am sure that they have no doubt whatsoever that His Excellency the President is going to deliver on the promises that he made to Kenyans. This is quite evidenced by the fact that when he was the Minister for Finance, it was the first time that resources for this country were given fairly and equitably to all constituencies in this country. It is during his tenure at the Treasury that centres of Excellency were started in the constituencies. A health centre, a market and a Jua Kali project were started in each constituency. That was the time that teachers were being distributed equally to all the constituencies and the recruitment of health personnel was done per constituency. If he was able to do that as the Minister for Finance, we have to support him as the Head of State and Head of Government to deliver on the promises that he made to Kenya. Let me refer to what he termed as the drivers of the economy. For us to achieve that, as he said, our economy has to grow and maintain a two digit percentage. I want to talk about five main pillars of economic growth. One is the issue of food security. Surely, a hungry country cannot make progress. This is why on agriculture, the President talked about putting a new one million acres under irrigation to ensure that there is food security. This is evidenced by the fact that even right now, during this rainy season, all the water that is going to waste, should be harnessed for that purpose. I urge this House to support His Excellency the President in ensuring that legislation is put in place to create a conducive and favourable environment for that. He also talked about making this country competitive globally through manufacturing. We have to produce competitive products either value added or produced and finished locally and it is the duty of this House to support the Government, particularly His Excellency, in ensuring that legislation is put in place to achieve this pillar. Another pillar that His Excellency talked about is on harnessing our human resource, namely, our personnel. One Member talked about the skills that we are producing as a country. Instead of allowing the brain drain, we need to maintain our locally trained professionals. This is a pillar on employment. I want to collapse this pillar with the issue of youth and women that His Excellency talked about. We need to go a step further and ensure that we put in place legislation that will ensure a deliberate affirmative action for the youth and women in terms of employment. We need to ensure that the issue of experience that is required by employers from the youth is done away with. About 70 per cent of this population is young. Every year, about 750,000 graduates join the job market, but we only absorb about 250,000. One of the things that are putting our youth out of employment is the requirement for experience. Right now, the county governments are advertising for executive positions and they are asking for experience."
}