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{
    "id": 5400,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/5400/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 396,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 97,
        "legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
        "slug": "john-mututho"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill. First and foremost, I would like to congratulate the Mover of this Motion, Mr. Wamalwa. Without going into the politics of who is the presidential candidate or aspirant, one thing is clear; if you happen to be in the bracket they call youth, that is between 18 and 35 years in Kenya, your fate is doomed, especially if your father was not a great chief or he is a Cabinet Minister. As we have always said, if you happen to be from Nakuru County where the last Cabinet Minister was appointed in 1966, then you have no chance. There will be no chiefs, District Commissioners, Provincial Commissioners or Permanent Secretaries to push things for you. Nothing will come from that particular area. So, you cannot really be able to push your agenda in procurement whatsoever. The only remedy to this is for us to look again at our legislative framework. I used to work at some point for United States Agency for International Development (USAID). One of the requirements then and it was in bold, was that a product must come from the free world. Free world did not include the Eastern Bloc at that particular time. That measure in itself enabled the people who were Americans and people who were friends of Americans like the United Kingdom and other places and a few African states to be able to sell certain goods and services running into billions of dollars because that was the legislative framework. One of the most prohibitive points under which youth is drawn out of business is what we call the performance bond. Performance bond is expressed under the Procurement Act as a percentage of what you really want to procure. It is usually between 2 to 10 per cent depending on the product that you want to do. Let us assume a Mr. Oteo would like to supply computers. He knows the best computers come from a factory in the United States of America or somewhere in China or wherever it is. He meets all the specifications, but for him to be able to tender, he needs to do that bid bond. Such ones can be waived competently by having your counter guarantee from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports or Youth Fund, for that particular matter. So, this young man can be registered as a supplier on that particular basis. The other point is that you shall have to go to the Technical Evaluation Committee which includes visiting your premises. The premises of a young man who has a problem affording for the day at about Kshs100 or Kshs200 will never qualify for a tender for Kshs1 million or Kshs100,000, forget even a tender for Kshs10 million. Those are provisos that can be adequately addressed. We can say that a young man of known character, domiciled to one youth group and based in a physical address here, operating from a café, that is good enough. This is so and so, not necessarily the son of a Chief so and so. He can be addressed that way and then be allowed to bid. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the reason we are putting this thing, and it is so important - I must thank Eugene Wamalwa again and again – is that, when the Government wants to procure goods and services worth about Kshs1 billion, it does not anticipate that the supplier is going to have Kshs1 billion in their account. It anticipates that they will be able to pay for the services to the tune of Kshs1 billion. We are creating a false impression that the big companies now then, have that capability to supply goods and do trade to a level of Kshs1 billion. We should be able to evaluate documents originating from a young man and allow the young man to get specifications from those factories because they will be the ultimate suppliers. They can then work out the instruments like the letters of credit that will encourage that young man to enter into that deal and we will achieve two advantages."
}