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{
    "id": 472206,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/472206/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 181,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The third issue is about information. One thing that happens to many promising people, especially young ones, is that they do not have information about the tenders. Quite often, Government departments have published information in the daily newspapers. At least, there is a procurement law that says that you must publish the information in the daily newspapers. Some information is found in the Kenyan Gazette which is only accessible to a few people. Those who follow the law in publishing should be providing information to a bigger community. The women and youth may not necessarily buy or access a particular daily newspaper and they will miss having very critical information. I was going to propose, especially at the county level that every county should have an information and resource centre within the county premises. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the information and resource centre must be known by the Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) and everybody else. This is the centre where you should get information about available tenders in the counties before you visit the tender offices. You should get information about how to fill tender documents. In fact, this should be a centre for some kind of capacity building. In this regard, you will find some people with very good ideas, but without information. These resource centres will enable such people to participate in tenders with some amount of ability and capability. At the moment, you will find that ordinary people who want to tender for something do not get information in good time. I know this because I have members of my family who run companies. I know that when I was a Minister, there was a tender in the Government which I did not get to know about it. I did not get to know about it and information passed me. Now that we have the devolved system of Government and there is a lot of business at the county level, county governments should do much better than what has been done before. This information should be made available in the electronic media. The FM stations have had a tremendous effect on the dissemination of information in our country. In fact, the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) proposed to counties to establish radio stations. Counties may not afford to open up radio stations at the moment. However, they can partner with the private sector which can give more county information. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, at the county level, we can use electronic media to give information, especially in the language that is most understood. If the local language is used to advertise for a tender which, for example, requires someone to supply school books to a school and there is somebody running a local shop in the local market that person will participate. Then that is where the Centre for Research and Information becomes important because this fellow then would be told how to fill forms and compete. We are saying this because we want business to go down to the grassroots. When CDF was introduced, the one thing that it did was that for the first time at the grassroots level, we could see the life of our people changing. For example, the little young boys who used to come to us, Members of Parliament, in the morning looking for handouts disappeared because they were now being employed by local contractors. They were being productive. With devolution, this should even stand further. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, my experience has been that women groups in rural areas are very enterprising. In fact, I do not know why men do not have men groups. 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."
}