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{
    "id": 839660,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/839660/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 350,
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    "content": "polytechnics is a devolved function. Let us, for example, see how many masons, carpenters and plumbers we have in Narok County before we decide to youth polytechnics there. They can be career driven. I would support county governments doing a career day to find out the number of youths who are graduating from primary schools and then end up being boda boda riders. We should also find out from them what they want to do. We have one very good youth polytechnic which is about three kilometres from my home. It is a structure that was constructed by the county government, but they missed an opportunity to approach more investors to build students’ hostels. If we identify a location where there is no private land that can be used to build students’ hostels, then the county government should be prepared to either build the houses or offer land so that the students who will be going there can find a place to live and learn effectively. We were told that the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) provides about Kshs40, 000 per year as loans to these students. What happens to those youth who were given Kshs40,000 and were trained somewhere in West Pokot and graduated but could not secure employment? There are so many youths in Narok? How will they ever pay that money? As we propose to bring all these things, we need to realign our existing resources. We should look at how we can help these youth. One of the biggest problems that we have in this country is that every county wants to copy something that looks interesting. We were ashamed today when we looked at the audit query of West Pokot County Government. It seemed as if the former Governor wanted to develop a city or a country because he had ardhi house and maji house yet they do not have water. Right now, the funds sent to the county governments are being reduced yet we are telling the county governments that they must build youth polytechnics. If that is what we want them to do, we must ensure that there is a fund which caters for the construction of those youth polytechnics during the Division of Revenue Bill. We also know that there is donor funding that supports these youth polytechnics. I support this but we should not do it blindly. Let us look at the skills that we need. Once we sort out the issue of the Petroleum Bill and Energy Bill, we will have more investors coming and there will be need for more plumbers and electricians. We can then introduce those courses in the polytechnics that already exist. Finally, it will be wrong for us to ignore the existing institutions. Some of us in this House benefitted from the Kenya Polytechnic and Mombasa Polytechnic. Those institutions changed from being polytechnics to universities. That whole scope of work changed. Therefore, let us do an audit before we move forward. I support this Motion but it does not make sense to say that we should build youth polytechnics in every single ward. Counties that are collecting very little money should only build two polytechnics until they are able to generate more revenue. That will help us to reduce the burden on the other counties or not to have a situation where the money that goes in cannot support the entire population. With those few remarks, I support."
}