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{
    "id": 700938,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/700938/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "management of its economic issues. It does what we call economic trade analysis, controls the monetary policy and is supposed to give advice on debt management. We know that the Central Bank is the bank of last resort that those other banks are expected to borrow from. This means that even as we appoint directors, it is important that we match the qualifications and experience with the responsibility or key functions of Central Bank. When you look through this list, you realize that most of these appointees have the necessary academic qualifications. Also, most of them have what I would call the relevant experience. We must also look at where we are coming from. In the last one year or so, this country has gone through a serious banking crisis where three important banks have collapsed and, as a result of that, CBK had to intervene and save them. With the CBK playing the supervisory role, it is expected to have directors who will be up to speed in terms of ensuring that this does not happen again. We have said many times that when banks collapse in any country, wrong signals are sent to the financial market. What happens is that investors and depositors panic and that can cause a serious financial crisis which can make an economy collapse. We need to guard against that as a country. That is why I am saying we must look at the immediate history of Kenya based on where we have come from; where three banks have been declared bankrupt or have collapsed. Issues have also been raised. I remember the last time when we were discussing the banking crisis, one of the issues which came up was conspiracy between the employees and directors of the banks, thus causing them to collapse. That means that we need directors who can effectively supervise the employees of the bank. At the end of the day, the directors are the ones who provide what I would call strategic direction of the bank. They should be able to screen the kind of employees that are working under them. This is so that they have employees who can provide the best services to Kenyans, and who cannot be compromised by being told to “close one eye” when they see things are not working. Another thing which came out clearly was the issue of poor supervision by CBK. We realized that even though CBK was supervising banks regularly, their supervision was not effective enough to some extent. It had some gaps which needed to be improved. When I look at this list, most of these people meet the qualifications. But my attention has been drawn to one particular appointee by the name Ms. Nelius Wanjiru Kariuki. When you look at her date of birth, she was born in 1950 and retired in 1990 from the Civil Service. I get worried because, as Kenyans, we have such a young population which is very well educated. Yet, the Chair and his team still want to give jobs to people who have retired. We have young people who are out there with PhDs, Masters and all the relevant experience and they are not being given jobs. We are being unfair to our young people. When you look at this list, the youngest person was born in 1976 and has already achieved at the age of 40 years. By our Constitution, these appointments have no representation of the youth who are between the ages of 18 – 35 years and form about 70 per cent of the Kenyan population. As a House, we will not be doing justice to Kenyans if we continue leaving out that huge population of our country and yet, we are saying we want to mainstream the youth in our activities. While I have no other issues with the rest of the appointees, I think the Committee would have helped us. I do not know the nominee personally and I have no personal issues with her but, I am just looking at her Curriculum Vitae (CV), experience and what she has done. I think that person has worked for this country and if there is anything she wanted to do in terms of value addition, she has already done it. This is a person I will oppose, not on the basis of experience, but that she has retired. I think we can give this position to the youth of this country, either male The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}