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{
    "id": 472243,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/472243/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 218,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "70 per cent of the people are women, but the owner of the company will not even be a woman. They will say that 70 per cent of the owners of the company are disabled, but there will be no disabled people in that company. The same fellows are always a step ahead of the State. They are the ones who will come round, prequalify themselves with every name conceivable – you will remember the famous name Fired Earth and Balistic Missiles which were owned by one man. These are the companies that destroyed Karura Forest. You will see them emerging in all forms; Fired Youths, probably, and they will be the same people. We must simplify the way youths; women and disadvantaged groups can do business. The general feeling among members of the public about this Uwezo Fund is that when it is a public fund, it is for free. It is seen as a slush fund for people to eat. When you give them money, they take it with no intention whatsoever of ever repaying it. A young person or woman will go and take a loan and the next day, he or she is at your doorstep as their Senator and they will tell you that they are not able to repay. When you ask them what they did with the money, they are not able to tell you. If you probe further, they will threaten never to vote for you. So, as the Senator, you have to start finding ways and means to pay these loans. Many times as a leader, you introduce needy cases to a bank. They put their land as collateral and after six months, they have not serviced the loan, the bank is going to auction the land and they come to you and say: “If you did not advise me, I would never have taken that loan”. So, you have to pay for it. All these things are going to happen. At the Committee Stage, we need to come up with a provision that covers this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is no way any enterprise under our current legal regime both at the national level and the county level can go to tender on any transaction without a budget for it. One would expect that the county governments and their departments and the national government and their departments, when young people who have never run an account and who have no money win a tender, they will show an accompanying letter to that victory in the tendering. That they can walk to bank of their choice, whether Kenya Commercial Bank or the Co-operative Bank and introduce the company and say, a company known as this and that has won a contract, we guarantee that we hold the money for this contract and we shall pay directly to your account and then they will get their profit out of it. If it is a tender for Kshs1 million and the profit margin is going to be 20 per cent which is Kshs200,000, the sponsoring entity will eventually pay the Kshs1 million to the bank and the youth will take out his Kshs200,000 and walk away and then there are no nightmares. Unless we do that, what is going to happen is that there are going to be even more shylocks in our system. People who just sit with money, the youth win a tender and you go to him and he tells you that he will finance the contract provided he or she takes 70 per cent of the profit. You know how shylocks operate even from the days of Shakespeare. If you do not pay, they slice off a pound of flesh next to your heart. That is what is going to go on and on. Those shylocks are ruthless. You borrow Kshs10 and you acknowledge receipt of Kshs100 and sign for it. When they come down on you, it is like a ton of bricks. You can tell them whatever you want but they will not listen. So, we must help these young people by making sure that the process is smooth and without hurdles. 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."
}