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{
    "id": 400847,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/400847/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 147,
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    "content": "situation where, in the African context, we want to ask; what does the leader say? Even when we go to the villages, that is why we talked about wazee wa mtaa the other day. People want to listen to what the leader has said. That is the African way of doing things. Madam Temporary Speaker, we have come up with very interesting versions of running our ideas. For example, for a head of a department to move to any direction, he has to consult a body called the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA), which has a lot of challenges. For example, I do not know how we are going to deal with the issue that was a success story for the Jubilee Government during the campaigns. It was a very simple thing; that all Class One children next year must have a laptop. But we heard in the newspaper the other day that we are running into problems with the project now, because the people who did not have a passion for it are the ones running it. When it comes to the usual process of how things are sourced, this needs affirmative action. For example, the top leadership that brought the idea could engage directly with the manufacturers. This is allowed by law; where you tell them that you want A, B, C and D done because this is a Government agenda. You do not have to call “simple” people in the office and tell them what has happened. We have a culture here which is deadly, where people want to use the law to defeat the procedure. They call it “what is in it for me?” Madam Temporary Speaker, when I read about this, there is a person called Han who was in charge of an international nuclear graduate school and coined a terminology called the Han River Miracle, where he said: “The following is law.” Here, we do not have that. We have to go out of the way to almost please everybody, including other people like the civil society, who are not even in the Government. Those people are supposed to support what has come. They can criticize but we should not bend to the extent that we normally see things moving. What is happening in our universities today? Between 100,000 and 200,000 students graduate from our colleges and universities every year. But which courses are selling like hot cake? They are the ones that can enable the graduate to get a job. Everybody is going for degree programmes where you can get a job, but do not apply your technology. What have we done about the engineering courses? When my daughter was going to do civil engineering, I asked the University of Nairobi how many students they take and I was told that they take 30 privately sponsored students per year and another 30 students that are subsidized by the Government. All of them must have Mean Grade A. When will we develop if we are admitting only 60 students per year? When you ask about that, you are told that, that is what the Government can fund. What about physics, chemical engineering and the nuclear engineering that we are talking about here? Madam Temporary Speaker, the Senate, therefore, needs to pronounce itself as we discuss this Report. Are we ready to go this direction? There is the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST). How much funding do we give them? In fact, Sen. Obure is here and he was the Minister for Public Works when they were being assisted last year to build the first office where they can move in. They were given Kshs150 million and it required Kshs600 million. Now I hear that the project stalled. If we cannot build even laboratories in such a big institution, then what are we saying? The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}