Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 928883,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/928883/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 155,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kwanza, FORD-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2065,
        "legal_name": "Ferdinard Kevin Wanyonyi",
        "slug": "ferdinard-kevin-wanyonyi"
    },
    "content": "First and foremost, the ultimate goal and the objective of this Bill is to be able to have directors not necessarily qualified in those particular fields. A director could be a medical doctor but in terms of the governance of a parastatal… We have seen so many parastatals going under. I do not want to name them but you can name some of the parastatals that have gone under because of mismanagement. All the Bill is trying to do is to get people trained for the good governance of the parastatals: the mission and vision, the objective and the corporate governance. We need to have people who understand the mission and vision of a parastatal for it to be able to move. It could be a teacher, farmer or anyone. We need to have refresher courses for people appointed as directors. Some people are now saying maybe the President should not appoint so-and-so because he is not properly qualified. No, we are saying the President can even appoint directors from a pool and run the parastatals. We have had problems. Personally, when I was a director of two parastatals I do not want to name, I had a problem. There were people appointed as directors who were not even sure of what they were doing. They just came to get allowances and go away. This Bill now will be able to help people who are appointed or those who have gone through the same system to understand why they are in a particular parastatal. A very good example is the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC). My history tells me that even Namibia learned from us. Our people went to Namibia to teach them, but today we go to Namibia to do benchmarking. It should be the other way round. We have had cases where people go to parastatals and because they do not know what they are doing, they divert Government resources to something else. So, this Bill has come at the right time and we should support it, because then we will be able to do away with some of the problems we have been having. As the previous speaker mentioned, I have had a chance to go to the UK and attend a three-day seminar in one of the directors’ institutes. You can look at what they are doing. When you talk to the directors about the same thing, a man says: “No, this is not what I came to do here.” So, this Bill will be able to assist us to have the directors trained so that the corruption, the mismanagement, the slow economic growth and the unemployment in this country will be a thing of the past. So, let us support this Bill so that directors can be trained or at least be exposed to good governance and corporate policies of various parastatals to be able to secure the economic growth of this country. This country is doing badly economically. Look at employment. It is regrettable that we have thousands of youths completing university and going to the streets. One particular case was highlighted two weeks ago, where a graduate had First Class Honours but could not get a job. After the expose by one of the media houses, he was called to join one of the banks here. How many of our youths have left university and have no jobs? We have the resources and the money but governance has been a big problem in this country. People mismanage companies and parastatals and most of them have gone under. Let us take this Bill very seriously so that at the Committee of the whole House stage we should be able to correct some of the aspects that have been raised by those who have reservations. I urge the Members of this House to support this Bill. Thank you very much for the opportunity."
}