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{
"id": 874750,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/874750/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Likuyani, FORD-K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Wamalwa Kibunguchy",
"speaker": {
"id": 294,
"legal_name": "Enoch Wamalwa Kibunguchy",
"slug": "enoch-kibunguchy"
},
"content": "awarded the Laureus Sports Academy of Excellence Achievement. I want to be counted as one of those who have congratulated him. May I also take this opportunity to congratulate a team of young girls under 16 from Moi Nangili Girls’ School in my constituency who won the football competition that brought together all the young under 16 in Kenya. They even went to East and Central Africa and they also won. So, I take this opportunity to congratulate. Finally, I wish our boys, Harambee Stars, who are going to participate in the AFCON all the best. I wish we could now put the ghosts of all these failures in football behind us as we go to AFCON and hopefully win that cup. Time has come, and that is why I support this Bill, that we should start by being able to motivate our teams and being able to organise friendlies so that they get enough practice as they go this African continental cup. Let me now turn to the Bill. I will start off from what most of my colleagues have talked about: the percentages. Any time you talk about a percentage where you say “not more than”, you are looking for trouble because anybody who is sharing out that cake, when you say not more than 30 per cent, will give you even 1 per cent because it is not more than 30 per cent. I think for us to be serious and to see that we get whatever we want from this Bill, it is either we stick with an exact figure. We can say 35 per cent will go to sports then 65 per cent will go to universal healthcare, or we stick with a figure by saying not less than. For example, when it comes to bursary in the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) Act, it is very clear and it compels us. You are put in a straitjacket that you will not go outside. The NG-CDF Act says bursary should not be less than 25 per cent. So, you cannot play around with that figure; the least you will give is 25 per cent. If not, it will be. So, that is an important amendment that we should include there. Secondly, we should be able to marry this Bill with what Hon. Osotsi brought up the other day when he said we should have sports academies in every constituency. If we expect to have the very best amongst us, we must nurture them from a very early age. We cannot expect to put Dr. Kibunguchy in the football field now and he will play. If we can pick up these small boys and girls at a very young age, we can mould them into some of the best sportsmen in the world. Some of you might not remember this or you have not been following up the history of some of the very best players in the world—I am a soccer fanatic—when you look at somebody like Lionel Messi, he was picked up by the Barcelona Academy when he was a very small boy, about six or seven years old, and they nurtured him to who he is now: the best football player in the world. So, if we want the very best, we must start nurturing them from a very early age. So, the idea of sports academies and a small or medium size stadium in every constituency is good. I have absolutely no problem with huge stadiums in the counties. If you look at my constituency of Likuyani, we are at the very far end of Kakamega. Bukhungu Stadium is now being refurbished using billions of shillings. Hardly will you get boys or girls from Likuyani going to play in that stadium. Maybe only in finals. If we have small or medium size stadiums in every constituency, where they are like the centres where you will have the finals of that level being played there, that is the direction we need to go. Finally, and this I say to my brothers and sisters from the North Rift, North Rift is a place that has nurtured me as a doctor and as a human being. It is where I got my wife from. So, it is very close to my heart. One thing about North Rift is athletics. But I think the leadership of the North Rift is not using that natural talent to the maximum. You find people travelling all over the world to come and practise with our athletes in Eldoret, Iten and Kapsabet and they are sleeping in people’s homes and not leaving us their dollars. I think time has come when the North Rift must put its act together and come up with something in the realm of an Olympic Village, where The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}