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{
    "id": 594960,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/594960/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 229,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. I rise to support this amendment. Allow me to congratulate Sen. Musila, who we have walked with through this journey since 2004. Allow me also to revisit its history because I remember it very well. We had filed a court case. However, the then President Mwai Kibaki was clever enough at that time to issue an order waiving all rates for students and somehow stole the thunder from Sen. Musila and the matter that we were fighting with the Attorney-General was spent. Madam Temporary Speaker, I have this experience because I have attempted to get certificates for various students in Makueni County using this law. The only reason principals and head teachers do not budge is because they get this strength to resist this law from their unions and they allege that the students owe money. I have grappled with this thing even in my capacity as a Senator, but have wondered and continued wondering. Every weekend we have harambees for schools and harambees of this nature or the other. Every weekend and every week, Members of Parliament are giving through Constituency Development Fund (CDF) cheques for building this or the other. What I am so much against is what is called “brick and mortar” sought of investment which does not help this country. Madam Temporary Speaker, the reason is because it does not make logical sense to spend so much money building libraries, schools, and yet when these people who you want to get into these classrooms are through with their education, they cannot get their certificates because they are poor. We must change the narrative. This is the narrative that a child who is 17 or 18 years old and the time that they are in Form Four, does not have an earning capacity. So, when you deny that child the certificate because the parent who is unlike me or the rest of the Senators here, cannot raise money in order to get their certificate, and then we advocate for rights of children, a contradictory position, a fallacy, a nation of hypocrisy and pretense. The national Government has waived the fees for examination yet after you waive that fees, that student will not get the certificate. The certificates remain in cartons for many years. Madam Temporary Speaker, I have similar examples. At the time that we filed the petition in 2004 - that is why I think Sen. Musila is passionate about this - the number of students in Makueni and Kitui at that time was 350,000 who had withheld certificates. At that time, the Ministry of Education gave us the statistics. The chances are that the number is either the same or it has increased. The owners of these certificates also do not have an opportunity of obtaining an Identification Card (ID), a leaving certificate, a job and et cetera. The tragedy that continues to befall this nation is something that ought to be discussed as a matter of national importance. Students in university can borrow through the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB). Some Members of Parliament - even some seated here - have not finished paying their loans for university. I recall distinctly that there was a move by HELB suggesting that Members of The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}