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{
    "id": 453404,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/453404/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 306,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr). Pukose",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1458,
        "legal_name": "Robert Pukose",
        "slug": "robert-pukose"
    },
    "content": "We also have the universities and vocational training colleges. When you look at the membership in this case, it is from the University Council and vocational training colleges, the Federation of Kenya Employers, Central Organizations of Trade Unions (COTU) and others. At the end of the day, we need to look for a framework that can make it appropriate for somebody with certain qualifications to be absorbed in the job market. In this county at times, when you read the newspapers, you will find that some institutions are admitting students with C (minus) after a few weeks of taking them through a crush programme, to enable them to be admitted to degree programmes. That needs to be standardized. As my colleague, hon. Chris Wamalwa has said, some professors in certain universities do not merit to be called professors. When they move from one university to another one, within a few weeks, a person becomes a professor. All that needs to be standardized, so that you have an authority that indicates the minimum qualifications for a person with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) who wants to become a professor. One must have written several publications and headed several research initiatives. When you come to the other cadres, for example, in a hospital, a sweeper is referred to as a doctor. For us in medicine to become a doctor, you must have gone to the Medical School to be called a doctor. In the past, even pharmacists were not called doctors. Now, they are called doctors and pharmaceutical technologists are saying they are the ones who trained some of those pharmacists. So, how do you call this one a doctor and the one who trained them is not a doctor? These are issues that need to be clarified. In as much as we want to talk about the increased wage bill, I want to thank the President and his Deputy for making a symbolic gesture. To me, it is symbolic unless we follow it with serious constitutional amendments. When we talk of the issue of a bloated Government, we have 47 counties. When you compare Kenya with a State like Texas, they are the same size. Texas has only one governor. Kenya has 47 governors. These are issues which need to be looked into. As part of the Members of Parliament who feel that soon we need to go for a referendum to correct the 20 per cent which needs correcting, these are issues that need to come out very clearly. We need to look at areas that can reduce our wage bill like procurement. Why should it be that when the Government is purchasing a commodity, it is three times or 10 times more expensive than when an individual is purchasing the same commodity and yet, we are talking of economies of scale? Why do we have privileges within the Government? We are talking of somebody taking imprest of Kshs2 million and to surrender it, they only need receipts. Are we doing the correct things? So, those are the privileges that we need to look at."
}