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{
    "id": 5410,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/5410/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 406,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Transport",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker that sounds to me more like an argument and the hon. Member will have her time on the Floor. What I was saying is that if you read the amendments as proposed by hon. Eugene Wamalwa; and I must congratulate him for the time and effort he has put in this, you will find that it is not addressing the issue of protection of people who have been marginalized. It is actually seeking to say that 25 per cent of all procurement shall be given to the people of his category. I think that is the difference. I am looking at a situation where we must be very careful as we do this law. I would like to urge that between now and the time we go to the Committee, let us not pass a law that will be declared to be unconstitutional when we have applauded and said that we have done a law for our youth. It is a very good principle but before we pass it into law, let us look at all the options and then put it in a way that it will not be subject to challenge because there will be many people who will be willing to challenge this law. I am saying this because even as we bring the amendments to the procurement law, I was at the heart of bringing all these preferences. We saw the changes that came to this House as people lobbied. What we thought we had reserved enough for our youth, for our Kenyan artisans and the Jua Kali people, instead of importing everything, was thrown out because it was challenged that it was discrimination. It was said that we were discriminating against one Kenyan; favouring one against another one, and I do not want to see this Bill suffer the same fate. I urge that between now and the time we go to the Committee, we look and see whether we will have the law being challenged on account of age because age is one of the grounds on which you cannot discriminate. Indeed, the reason we removed the age bracket for the presidential candidates, which used to be there, was on the basis that you could not discriminate on account of age. I wanted to highlight that bit. The other thing we also need to be very careful about is the practicability. Twenty five per cent of procurement in a Government Department may well be one procurement. For example, if one Government Ministry wanted to do its headquarters and there was Kshs1 billion to be spent, you would not say that 25 per cent of that building would be done by the youth and the remaining 75 per cent by another contractor. There are some things that may not be practical and we need to make sure that, within the wording of the law, we provide the flexibility where a task cannot be assigned to different people without compromising on the quality so that we capture the essence of the youth but without creating restrictions to the procuring entities; that they cannot move in a given direction because they have to split all the procurement. There has been a lot of debate on the youth and we seem to be equating the youth of Kenya to be synonymous with the poor. I have listened to hon. Mututho talk about the sons and daughters of kings. They are also youths. I think it is important we do not pass a law here that will discriminate against some youths who are in the bracket of 18 to 35 years old. These youngsters you see driving big cars in this City qualify as “youth” even if they hail from the privileged families. Some of us, like hon. Dr. Khalwale and others were brought up in the upcountry. However, we had to survive our way through. There are people who were born into privilege and they have everything. They will be competing with young men from Kipipiri who will be setting up small shops. Much as you are talking about the youth, the term “youth” is not generic. There are some youths in this country who own Kenya. We are talking of them owning billions of shillings. If we are not careful, they will take up all these opportunities. We must be very careful as to what we are talking about. We want to make sure that as many people as possible are given these opportunities, especially in procurements in counties. That is where we should really be concentrating, to ensure that all these procurements benefit as many youths as possible in the counties. The money that we spend on CDF would have benefited many youth if we had such a law. How can we ensure those preferences go to the youth who go through our youth polytechnics? They are the ones who should produce the furniture for our schools. We should not be sending out those tenders to people in Nairobi to supply them. We do not want to see suppliers from Nairobi coming up with all ready-made desks, when local youths can supply them. We do not want to see our schools full of very good looking desks, but the fathers of the children in those schools cannot afford even to buy shoes because all the money has gone to Nairobi instead of to the local fundis who would have benefited. This is the only way we can empower the whole community."
}