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{
"id": 444629,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/444629/?format=api",
"text_counter": 333,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Tonui",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 1242,
"legal_name": "Ronald Kiprotich Tonui",
"slug": "ronald-kiprotich-tonui"
},
"content": "compensation in agriculture. I know various sectors have been compensated for suffering calamities; but maize farmers in Bomet county have never been compensated. There is a disease which has actually made maize farming nearly impossible, and we are getting misleading information from the agriculture officials. They direct us to buy hybrid seeds from Kenya Seed Company, as these are the right seeds to be planted as they cannot be affected by this maize disease. But still, the disease has really attacked all our maize plantations, and our farmers are not harvesting any maize. A compensation kitty for farmers needs to be created. Having come from the teaching career, I will never say anything in this Appropriation Bill, without mentioning something to do with Teachers Service Commission (TSC). We are allocating Kshs.165 billion to the TSC, and this money will employ 5,000 teachers. Surely, this is a drop in the sea, when we have a teacher shortage of over 80,000. We have a great opportunity to take care of this teacher shortage; we are not putting adequate resources to recruitment of teachers. I do wish that we could appropriate more money to TSC to recruit at least 20,000 teachers this year. Hopefully, I will bring an amendment to this during the Committee Stage to ensure that we have more teachers, and also to take care of the discrimination in the TSC. Teachers are a highly discriminated against lot, while other public servants are able to enjoy responsibility allowance and leave allowance. Teachers do not enjoy this and the Constitution is very clear that there should be no form of discrimination. So, I request my colleagues to support this idea of giving more funds to the TSC. On the issue of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, I can see on the Development Vote, we are giving them about Kshs24 billion. Electrification is a key issue in all parts of this country. All of us need electricity in our houses. Most of our homesteads in the rural areas do not have electricity. I am happy with Jubilee the programme to provide electricity to all primary schools. This is a very good initiative and I do support it. But I believe we need to come up with cheaper sources of energy, possibly using coal, which is there in Kitui, Taita and West Pokot, so that we can bring the cost of electricity down. Currently, it is very expensive; even if we are able to take electricity to our villages, most of our people will not be able to connect it. This is because paying a bill of Ksh.1,000 every month is not quite affordable by our people. So, we must think of ways of making electricity much cheaper. On the issue of allocation to the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, about Kshs50 billion and part of this Ksh.33 billion to CDF--- This is one of the best devolved funds, which is really felt on the ground. I am happy with this but I do wish we could even increase the amount which is allocated to CDF. In my county there is one character who normally laughs at us regarding this CDF; he says the money is just peanuts; you can only use it to construct toilets, and nothing else. Surely, we have done lots of development through CDF. Currently at least in each primary school in my constituency we are putting up a classroom and also in most of our secondary schools. It might not be in all of them but, at least, we are improving the state of our classrooms. For our kids to learn well, they need a good environment and good classrooms, but there are places where they are learning in classrooms made of 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."
}