President William Ruto has expressed concern that a good number of Kenya Kwanza legislators lack information about several significant government policies that have far-reaching impacts on the lives of citizens.
The head of state took issue with his party’s MPs for failing to rally behind the said government’s initiatives, such as in job creation, as required. He decried “ignorance” by the parliamentarians who have done nothing to link Kenyans with now-available job opportunities abroad.
This came as it emerged that of the 2,500 advertised jobs, only 500 nurses had applied for the positions with many MPs and Senators admitting that they were not aware of the opportunities.
This emerged at Lake Naivasha Resort where the President, Cabinet, and members of Senate and Parliament have converged to take stock of the government’s performance and progress.
While listing the progress that the government had made, the legislators told the President to his shock that they were not aware of plans to recruit the 2,500 nurses.
“Look here, my friends. It was advertised in the press. I have also talked about it in every meeting. As a leader, ukisikia President anasema iko kazi, kwa kichwa hujiulizi utasaidia aje? Si unaenda kutafuta hawa nurses as their representative?” posed Ruto.
He went on to say “Am hearing some of you say you are not aware. Mnataka nifanye nini? Mnataka nisimame wapi ama niweke volume kiasi gani? CS Bore and PS Mwadime are here and we still need 2,000 nurses,” he said.
Ruto took offense with the matter noting that he had raised the issue in all the places he had visited and challenged the leaders to follow it up with the CS for Health.
“In all the places I have visited, I have spoken about the issue of hiring more nurses which has been captured in the media, and am surprised that the legislators are not aware of this,” he said.
The President added that plans were underway to export more laborers abroad and identified Germany where the government had entered into a pact on job opportunities.
“Several counties need over 1m workers and we are working on an agreement with the German government for over 250,000 job opportunities by June,” he said.
He revisited the controversial affordable housing project noting that it would continue as he called on parliament to fast-track the new bill when it was tabled on the floor.
Ruto said that currently, over 130,000 youths had benefited from job opportunities with projections that the numbers could hit 300,000 by the end of the year.
“The courts which had stopped the housing project informed us that some people had been left out in paying the levy and am asking parliament to expand this tax bracket,” he said.
He said that despite the challenges facing the country, the government had done a lot mainly in the agriculture sector through the provision of subsidized fertilizer.
The President challenged MPs present to own ongoing projects in the constituencies like the open air markets, County aggregation and industrial parks, and the proposed ICT hubs.
On his part, Deputy President Rigathe Gachagua took issue with legislators who were fighting the government that assisted them get into power.
He pointed out the recent protest by MPs from both sides of the House over the failure of the exchequer to release the NG-CDF cash.
“The President went overboard to protect NG-CDF after the court ruling and it’s only fair to support the government even when there is a delay,” he said.
Gachagua also directed CS and PS to make sure that they informed respective MPs in advance about plans to visit their constituencies and not to leave out the elected leaders.
The leader of the Majority in Parliament Kimani Ichungw’a assured the President that the new affordable housing bill would be ready by mid-next month.
“We have had challenges with some of our members joining the opposition in opposing some issues like the delayed release of NG-CDF cash and we can address this internally.
Others who spoke were the leader of the Majority in the Senate Aaron Cheruiyot who said that none of the government bills had been defeated in the Senate.
By Eric Biegon