Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 5391,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/5391/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 387,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 185,
        "legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
        "slug": "danson-mungatana"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to start my brief contribution by thanking the Mover of this amendment Bill, hon. Eugene Wamalwa for sponsoring this Bill to the House. I also thank the Seconder, hon. Odhiambo-Mabona and all the previous speakers who have spoken before me. I fully agree with their sentiments. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to bring a different angle to this Bill in supporting it. This Bill basically wants to put a law in this House and to the country that 25 per cent of all business that belong to Government should go to people who are defined as youth by the Constitution. Given our little experience when we were younger, I personally worked in a professional law firm for a period of one month and then I decided to set up my own practice. It was impossible at that time to secure any work from any Government parastatals. It was impossible to go to banks of standing that had shares in Government; it was impossible even to approach Government departments because they would look at you and say: “You are too young for us to give you this kind of job” even though you were employed previously; you were actually the person handling that professional work. Everybody shuns and avoids you because they say that you lack experience of ten or 20 years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is not only in legal practice that this happens. If you go to engineering, medical practice or any type of professional work, you will find that older people dominate the work that is supposed to go to the younger people. In fact, young people never get important Government briefs where they can improve themselves professionally. I, therefore, wish to support very strongly that the young people should be given 25 per cent of jobs that come from Government work. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the immediate impact that this law will have is that if there is a law firm, engineering firm or any professional body that has been denying young professionals an opportunity for partnership, that kind of thing will stop. If there is a firm of professionals which has deliberately been refusing to admit into partnerships young people, then they will lose some of the Government jobs that they have been getting. By the stroke of the signature of this Bill into law, we will have a few young Kenyans who will take up serious responsibilities within our economy. For us who have had to struggle through life because we never had these kind of opportunities, we want to say that we will leave Kenya a better country when we have this affirmative action. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am reminded that, actually, Article 55 of the new Constitution deliberately states that we should have affirmative action for the youth so that they can participate in economic activities. I think this Bill needs to be supported by all people who are of goodwill and are doing something or want to do something about the young people in Kenya who have not had opportunities to come up. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know contracts like murraming roads and cutting bushes by the roadside are done by older people. They have continually dominated these kinds of jobs. Even most projects of Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) are done by older people in our society. All these Government procurement rules have discriminated against the young people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I really want to urge this House and everybody else who will contribute that we must take a step forward. The step forward is for us to say with finality that now younger people must get into the economic activity of this country by passing this Bill. It must now be compulsory for this Government to do the same. This is a Bill that we need to pass yesterday. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}