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{
    "id": 523297,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/523297/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 130,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Nyenze",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1987,
        "legal_name": "Francis Mwanzia Nyenze (Deceased)",
        "slug": "francis-mwanzia-nyenze"
    },
    "content": "national Government and county governments, this country would develop very fast. But as things are both at the national Government and county governments, we have not eradicated corruption although we have tried to fight it. We have not succeeded. Corruption has increased instead of decreasing. In our school curriculum, we have to start teaching our children good values of financial management where you do not engage in corruption and all these other vices. Instead of fighting corruption through prosecution, we should nib it at the bud and stop it. People will not have appetite for it. India, which is one of the fastest growing economies apart from China, has shown a marked growth for the last ten years; every village is required to produce one product and that product is bought by the Government. People in these villages do a SWOT analysis to see what is available in their regions. They do the best to produce and do value addition. They produce and the Government helps the MSMEs and women groups to add value to the product. Once the products are value added, the Government buys them and some of them are exported. It is only through the promotion of small and medium enterprises that this country will grow. Mega projects are where the big fish, through bad procurement processes, benefit from. They benefit where they have not planted. We should promote youth and women groups in the villages by giving them capital, training them on manufacturing what is available and what they are good at, promoting their products and assisting them to access markets. That is how a country develops. Unless we do that, poverty will spread and instability will creep in. In this country, we have heard the teachers saying “ haki yetu ”. Nurses and doctors and all manner of employers are crying for salary hikes because the cost of living is very high. Even for policemen and other employees who have no trade unions and nobody to fight for their rights, the cost of living in this country has shot through the roof. Most of the Members of the National Assembly can attest to this. Whenever they go to their constituencies, they find long queues of parents who cannot take their children to secondary schools or pay medical bills for their sick ones. The burden is passed on to the legislators to chip in and help. This country is not poor, but because of bad procurement laws, poor implementation of policies and corruption, we lose so much money. That money goes to the rich; the bourgeois or the big people. They are the ones who can get those big contracts, but the poor people do not have that capacity to get those big contracts. They even do not know how it is done. I am very happy that this Bill tries to promote education and uplifting of women groups, so that they can access these contracts. I come from Kitui County and I have been concerned about procurement in that county. Just a few weeks ago, the governor invited us to go and witness the opening up of two murram roads where a grader passed and cut a road through. All the Members of the National Assembly from Kitui were being invited to go and witness that miracle where a road has been created because the grader passed through. When I asked about the cost, I was told it was Kshs400 million. Surely, if this is the way we are going to develop these counties; a grader cuts an earth road and Kshs400 million is gone, what kind of procurement was that? I am sure most of these Members have similar cases where resources devolved to county governments are being wasted. Instead of consultation with the elected Members of the National Assembly and the Senate on what should be given priority, the governors just go on and do whatever they feel is good. They even do not 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."
}