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{
"id": 414914,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/414914/?format=api",
"text_counter": 314,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Wakhungu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 1889,
"legal_name": "Chrisantus Wamalwa Wakhungu",
"slug": "chrisantus-wamalwa-wakhungu"
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"content": "As we move on, it is very important that we give a clear description of the youth that we are talking about. When we talk about the youth, it is both male and female. So, what I am trying to put across is that PPOA must cascade itself up to the county level because this is where we are having problems. In the Constitution of this country, the main objective is devolution and a lot of money is being devolved to the county level. Right now, we know it is a minimum of 15 per cent; we are striving to increase it to 40 per cent. So, it will be important for the PPOA to cascade itself to the county level, to ensure that all this county level projects, which are going to come in, comply with this law. When you look at the public procurement law, we have mainly three aspects of procurement. We have the open, restricted and direct. Many times when these tenders are floated, you are told you must have ten years of experience. You can imagine a youth who has just left university and you are told to have ten years of experience, where are you going to get those ten years of experience? You are also told to give a bank account that is ten years old. Where are you going to get it? You are unemployed. There are success stories in this country of some people who have never even been employed, but they have had businesses, for example hon. Deputy President of this country, hon. William Ruto. Looking at him, he has never been employed anywhere, but has gone through this business aspect and is where he is because of his businesses. He has employed many youths. So, if such an opportunity has been given to the youth, it is not a must for them to be employed. Let us look at this youth in terms of business and when it comes to the procurement law, we must amend further the conditionalities that are in place. Having been a consultant of World Bank, at one time when I was bidding for work, I was told I must have 15 years of experience. When I was given a chance to make a presentation -I had only five years’ experience - I did the job very well more than many people who had 30 years of experience. To me, the issue is not about the number of years one has worked, but the fact that those conditionalites are tailored to suit some youth. Somebody like Ketan Somaia, when you read about him, at the age of 22 years, the man was flying a plane. When I asked him how he made his money, he said it was through business. In many of these projects, they are talking of collateral and bid bonds, but it will also be nice to go further and amend those conditionalities to suit the youth. When it comes to security bonds, we have seen many of our financial institutions are not willing to engage the youth. They will ask for experience. It will be good to approach financial institutions and ask them, in terms of providing security bonds and bid bonds, if they can be tailored to suit the youth. We can put this into the law but when it comes to execution that is a different thing. Public procurement needs to be reengineered. This public procurement process has brought more problems. Recently, we had an issue of the governors; they had been given money and did not spend it. Within a month or two you cannot spend the money. The public procurement has rules; some of them are actually working against the development of this country. So, it is high time we amended the public procurement law. You can have the money but you cannot spend it. 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."
}