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{
    "id": 767328,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/767328/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 59,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, based on the response by the Senate Majority Leader, it is quite clear that even when we have preferential procurement, there are challenges around the percentages. It is quite telling. If you look at even the numbers, the youth have 10,000 and women have 13,000 businesses; while PWDs only have a paltry 1,200 businesses. This really underscores issues to do with the bi-directional co-variance between poverty and disability. Clearly, there are issues there because if you look at the model that we copied from, it is actually from the South African broad based economic empowerment for previously disadvantaged groups. These programmes sought to empower black people so that they could take over the economic sector of the country. When you look at our country, Kshs24 billion is a lot of money going into the pockets of groups that are, hereto, unable to stand on their own economically. However, I think it is very skewed to the point that we even have some regulation that PWDs should get a minimum of 2 per cent to protect them. This Senate and the Executive have a responsibility to ensure the fundamental rights and freedom of PWDs. In this regard, we really need to empower this group of people so that, ideally, they should be able to hit 10 per cent so that we have 10 per cent each for women, youth and PWDs. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is a lot of work to be done and I am very happy that there is now that comprehensive data. We need to interrogate this further so that even within the 1,200, the 13,000 and the 10,000 we do not have a situation where empowered business men are hiding behind maybe their sons and daughters or their PWDs so that they are then hired. That is what happened in South Africa, where you find somebody – sorry to say, a white person – going with the name of a black person and just use the credentials of the company to access the preferential procurement. Those are some of the things that we need to be alive to because, ideally, we are transferring or distributing wealth so that, then, it actually targets the right people. Going forward, I believe that there needs to be serious monitoring and evaluation tools to ensure that Government is able to properly track these companies so that their ownership is very clear. I think it is also important that we try to relook at the procurement laws in this Parliament because they are quite inhibitive. We have very stringent legal codes that sometimes do not end up empowering the very people that we would want to. There needs to be some fast-track around the issuance The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}