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{
    "id": 53789,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/53789/?format=api",
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    "content": "is time for the Government to come in. If we were to increase the allocation for free education, then we must have a portion for infrastructural development. We have been financing the recurrent expenditure. There is no accurate formula that the Ministry has adopted to ensure that the infrastructure both in our secondary and primary schools is built. I know that there have been ad hoc programmes that have been carried out. However, they are not enough. We need to make sure that we factor in a portion of it to cater for development purposes. There are some schools that have electricity. Unfortunately, I have one school in my constituency. The amount of money allocated for electricity per year is Kshs20,000. The school spends almost Kshs10,000 per month. So, when you look at that allocation, you will see that it does not help at all. Therefore, the Ministry must look at the proposed allocations on each item so that it can make them meaningful to help the schools. I hope that the Government can also give schools some leeway to do their work plans with regard to what to procure. The complaint we have been getting out there is that the budgets are stringent. They are told that they must buy text books among other things, without giving them any leeway. The problems are unique in each institution. Therefore, each school should be given an opportunity to develop its own work plan. That way, we will solve all the unique problems in every institution. With regard to secondary schools, the pressure is on the payment of school fees. Every time we are at the constituencies the challenge we face very day - and every hon. Member knows – even the Minister - is on the payment of school fees. We need to increase that so that we can reduce the pressure on leaders. We have issues of fundraising. The CDF money is very little to finance anything. We do not even know the fate of CDF. Therefore, the Ministry must put in place a structure where school fees are paid as a right to all the students. There is something which is related to the Motion that we passed a while ago. Yes, we want to increase those amounts. However, we do not know what capacities have been built to account for those monies properly. There must be an element for financing the people who do the accounting work of the money allocated to schools. There are situations where headteachers are blamed for not keeping proper records. They should not be blamed because they are not trained in that area. You have not provided any mechanism to account for that money. That is why the Minister has many problems. People are saying that there is corruption. Maybe, there is no corruption. It is about lack of capacity. I think it is time we thought seriously about having an accountant or a qualified person to account for those monies in every school. If not, we must have some selected schools with qualified accountants to account for all the monies. I do not want to say more than that. I want to encourage the Government to take action on this Motion because it is very important. What we are facing individually in this country is what the schools are facing as institutions. Therefore, we must increase the funding. This time round, I congratulate the Minister for releasing the money on time. That should be our way of life. Money should be released in December so that when schools open in January, everything is fine. That way, schools’ programmes will not be interfered with. With those few remarks, I second the Motion."
}