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{
    "id": 523314,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/523314/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 147,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Kanyua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 981,
        "legal_name": "Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua",
        "slug": "priscilla-nyokabi-kanyua"
    },
    "content": "profits of up to 400 per cent. That is not acceptable. If we are going to do business with Government, we have to make realistic profits that are in line with the market rates and the market trends of between 10 per cent and 40 per cent. A pen that everybody else buys at Kshs20.00 is sold to the Government at Kshs200.00. Everyone of us is really shocked. We have gone to Government Ministries, where they procure pens for 10 years not because they need pens for 10 years but because procurement allows them to take something for 10 years. Hon. Speaker, at one time, we had the Ministry of Health procure Hepatitis B Vaccination. Nobody could explain whether Hepatitis B had come into the country. Nobody could explain why there was procurement of Hepatitis B Vaccinations. That is, again, a problem we have had with the sort of law of procurement that we have. We will be looking at this law to ensure that standard prices and standard costs are applied. As we procure, the access to information law must become a reality in this country. The records of whatever goods and services we procure must be subject to scrutiny at a particular point in time. There is no reason as to why when people build private homes, they cost a certain value but when they build the same houses for the Government, they cost up to 20 times the value of that same property. A lot of impropriety goes on when people buy land for Government purposes. We need to make sure that such practice is curtailed. Another story is told and there have been questions on Africa – whether we are corrupt because of our genetics. It has been found out that we are not genetically corrupt. We do not have genes in our bodies that make us corrupt. What we have is an environment that allows us to be corrupt. We have all attended funeral committees. The treasurer of funeral committees, to whom we all contribute our money, does not steal that money. If you put the same treasurer in Government office, he becomes a corrupt person. What that tells us is that in the funeral committee, the treasurer could not steal because we were all there looking at the money and the budget. In Government office, the treasurer is alone and, therefore, he is able to steal the money. If corruption is not genetic, then we have to deal with it through this procurement law. We have to make sure that the procurement law that we pass for our country confirms to everybody that Africans are not corrupt by genes but they can curtail corruption in their environment and in their countries. Hon. Speaker, we support the 30 per cent preferential procurement. Article 227 of the Constitution envisages a situation where preferential standards will be included to allow groups which have been disadvantaged before to be empowered by the procurement law. We celebrate President Uhuru Kenyatta’s vision of 30 per cent preferential procurement for women, the youth and persons with disabilities. We celebrate the mechanisms that have been put in place, but we are asking that the Sakaja Bill that was passed by this House be applied here, so that 30 per cent of public procurement can be reserved for women, the youth and companies of persons with disabilities. We want this policy to be made a reality. It is one thing to promise 30th per cent preferential procurement and another thing to make it a reality. In many of our counties, we still have many young people who are not employed. If the 30 per cent preferential procurement is made a reality, those young people will be employed right where they are because the big contractor even in our counties is the Government. 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."
}