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"id": 978222,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mathare, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Anthony Oluoch",
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"legal_name": "Anthony Tom Oluoch",
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"content": "the questions about the youth are very crucial to the well-being of this nation. I want to pick up from where Hon. Washiali left, when he gave a challenge to the youth when he said that it is a good thing that the young Members of Parliament make a good case for which they are elected to Parliament and bring up legislations such as this one. For that reason, I want to commend the Hon. Member for the time he has taken to develop this Bill. However, I want to remind this House that we sat here when we had a Motion which the Member of Parliament for Mathare brought. Very well debated issues and similar sentiments such as these were made. When the Bill went to the Budget and Appropriations Committee, and I would have hoped that they should have been here, that Bill was killed on the grounds that it would occasion a Ksh40 billion bill to the Exchequer. So, we are sitting here with a lot of good words around how we care about the youth but there are structures within our parliamentary system that will not allow anything that will actually accrue into tangible benefits to the youth to see the light of day. There are mandarins from Treasury who look at every single Bill that passes here and the monetary implications they have. While every year we lose 30 per cent of our Budget to corruption, out of the Ksh3 trillion Budget that we passed last year, 30 per cent would be close to about Ksh700 billion. In the Bill, we were proposing a Ksh40 billion grant that would be cascaded to the constituencies and help the young people to create sports stadia, cinema mashinani, ICT hubs and other creative things that would open up employment opportunities for the young people. This House shot down that Bill. I surely hope that the Bill by the Hon. Member will not suffer the same fate. Secondly, as we speak and debate here, the Budget and Appropriations Committee is somewhere sitting, looking at departmental and ministerial budget proposals under the BPS and they will bring very shortly before this House billions of shillings allocated to the line ministries. I will invite this House, like I did last year, to go through those programmes of Government line by line and especially the ones relating to youth, and you will be very surprised at the amount of money as Parliament we dedicate to the empowerment and employment of the young people of the Republic of Kenya. I am very conscious of the Standing Orders, but allow me say something in Kiswahili. My law professor, PLO Lumumba used to say: Mnatupaka mafuta kwenye mgongo wa chupa. As Members of Parliament, this is what you are doing. When the Budget comes here, please interrogate it and find out. If you are going to put about Ksh50 billion to other things, you can surely put about Ksh50 billion as a fund to empower the young people of the Republic of Kenya. Thirdly, we are currently debating, a national discourse, how we can change our national governance structures. Our devolved units have requested and I agree, that we raise the threshold for them from 15 per cent to 35 per cent. The point that I want us to pursue is that the same way we do for NG-CDF that is so structured; 2 per cent for sports, 2 per cent for environment and a maximum of 35 per cent for bursary and education, and 5 per cent for administration, the same should be done when we increase that money in respect of counties and demand that 5 per cent of the money that goes to the counties, must be dedicated to youth programmes, youth activities, creation of sports stadia, creation of sports academies, ICT hubs, cinema mashinani, studio mashinani and the things that the young people of this country can gainfully get involved in. Fourthly, there are many littered funds that we have in terms of Uwezo Fund, Youth Enterprise Fund and the Biashara Fund that the Committee on Delegated Legislation nullified. Those funds serve very little purpose. I agree with the Members of Parliament who have spoken. In Mathare Constituency where I am serving my third year, we have been told that we cannot 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."
}