HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 414913,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/414913/?format=api",
"text_counter": 313,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Wakhungu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 1889,
"legal_name": "Chrisantus Wamalwa Wakhungu",
"slug": "chrisantus-wamalwa-wakhungu"
},
"content": "Yes, thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I rise to support this Bill. I would like to thank hon. Sakaja for bringing such an amendment. We all know that in terms of law, we have the Constitution, which is the supreme law. You go to a statute and then a regulation, but if we leave it at the regulation level as we usually put it, any person might come and change it. But if it comes in as a statute, it will actually put in a lot of force so that in case of any amendment, it has to be done through this Floor. In line with the Constitution, Article 1 talks about sovereignty of the people, represented by its elected people. This is the right place to bring that amendment. So, indeed, it is important that this statute must be in place. Research has shown that 70 per cent of the unemployed people are the youth and we know very well that if we take good care of the youth, we are going to have posterity as far as the economy of this country is concerned. Majority of the people who are languishing in poverty and disease are the youth. So it is a critical issue that we must look at in terms of security of this country. I went round checking how the county governments have been awarding these tenders and I found that 90 per cent of these tenders were not only coming from the youths within the county, but from other counties as well. A lot of big problems are in the villages and we want to put this clear, that when you talk of 30 per cent, it must be described. Are we talking of 30 per cent in terms of the volume or in value terms? Unscrupulous people might come and say they are going to give 33 of the items, and if you look at 33 of the items, maybe in value terms, it is only Kshs.1 million and the rest is worth billions. So, it is important, as we talk of 30 per cent, to realize that it is not just in terms of volumes but also in terms of the value terms. If all the contracts are worth Kshs.100 billion, so when you talk of 30 per cent we are talking about Kshs.33 billion to go to the youth. It will be very important for hon. Sakaja, that we consider this aspect, because really if we leave it hanging we are going to have big problems as far as this issue of the youth is concerned. The Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) is the one that is supposed to look at all the aspects of procurement, but unfortunately it has been behaving like the Auditor-General’s office, whereby it deals with history. We want to call upon PPOA to be involved from the time the tender is being advertised or opened to ensure that this 30 per cent that we are talking about for the youth is put into consideration. When you talk about the youth, the definition is very clear; they must be less than 35 years old. We are going to see unscrupulous business people, those who are even 50 years and above. We have seen them saying they are the youth. So we must make it clear, when we talk about the youth, they are different from young people. We have people who are 40 years, they are still young but they are not youth. We have people who are 35 years, they are still young, but they are not youth. The law is very clear; they must be less than 35 years. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}