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"content": "course, you will go to a businessman who is already known to, probably, back you or something like that. But I have seen that they have not supplied and done what they sought to do in the first place since May when they were given these jobs. However, the procurement entity is now calling back the tenders. So, merely saying that we will give 30 per cent of the business to the youth is not helping them. Even if we gave them LPOs, and I know that banks do not trust those LPOs in the first place because some have been falsified---. But even if they checked, some people have gone behind the LPOs and have been paid money directly into other accounts and avoided paying the money to the banks. You will have to do a lot of persuading to our banks to finance LPOs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we really want to support these groups, because I am sure that we will give them the tenders, but they will not supply. We will tell them: “Go and do uniforms for all the nurses in Homa Bay Hospital.” Of course, you have the machinery to do it, but you do not have the resources to buy the materials, do it and supply before you are paid, because they are not going to pay you in advance. So, essentially, we will be going back to where we came from. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill should have been backed by some financial arrangement that would make it easier for the people who have been given these businesses to leverage it against that financial arrangement. I am thinking of a Government institution like Post Bank which is 100 per cent owned by the Government. But when the Government is creating the WEF, Uwezo Fund and the YEDF, the money is given to other banks. Yet, Post Bank has branches in almost every market that I know of in this country. So, I do not know why we are not supporting our own as a Government and investing in them. Look at the situation at which we are buying things in bulk like sugar, rice, fertilizer and so on. Cereals board has nothing to do with procurement. In fact, it is like the Government is procuring these things and then gives to cereals board to keep because they have warehouses. We have a huge case in which cereals board had to pay almost Kshs500 million and yet, there is a Government entity which is 100 per cent owned by this Government called the National Trading Corporation (NTC) which used to do bulk importation and bulk distribution of some of these goods. We have let it die because we want to support a system which is very amorphous where people can make money. Let me leave that for another day and address the issue of youth support. The Bill says that we are trying to deal with discrimination. It is Article 16 on page 4, bottom right. It is talking of equality and freedom from discrimination. In fact, this Act is discriminative because it is saying that 30 per cent must go to the youth. This is called positive discrimination and sometimes it is a good thing. That is also what is called empowerment. I hope that the Government will come back with a good initiative. Otherwise, we will be wasting time. This is the initiative in which we will back the youth so that when they are given these tenders, even if it is supply of chalk, exercise books or text books, they can then go with the LPO to a bank, buy those books from Text Book Centre, supply, the bank is paid and then they get their bit. If we do not give financial access, we are wasting time and they will not go anywhere. I am saying this very passionately because most of us here, except for Sen. Murkomen, we are now older and 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."
}