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{
    "id": 1029549,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1029549/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 277,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "With a shrinking GDP, a shrinking economy, and a growing population, we are going back to a developing country, yet this was one of the promises that we set out in Vision 2030 that we want to be a new industrializing middle income economy. COVID-19 has taken us back to where we did not want to be, but it is a combination of COVID-19 and bad politics. Madam Temporary Speaker, the President launched certain tax incentives that were aimed at easing the pain for people who are salaried and reducing taxes for those who are in the informal sector. However, those tax incentives are not enough. A proper stimulus package for COVID-19 must go beyond fiscal policy and fiscal initiatives. We want to see a situation where the Government has a clearly focused and targeted sectoral intervention. We have put in place Kazi Mtaani, which in essence, the Government is telling us is meant to put some money in the hands and pockets of the youth. Unfortunately, it is putting money in the hands and pockets of county commissioners, sub county administrators, chiefs and other people in the administration gravy train. The young people are being engaged in activities that cannot be audited and do not impart any special skill upon them. Madam Temporary Speaker, the President keeps on talking about the Big Four Agenda. One of the key plans of the Big Four Agenda is housing where his target is to put up 500,000 new housing units. This is a lovely idea. It has been used elsewhere. Singapore established the Singapore Housing Development Board. Through that housing development board, Singapore managed to provide employment to the young people, to skill young people, and develop housing that was cheap to an extent that to date, close to 90 per cent of Singaporeans own their own houses. Can we engage our youth in Kazi Mtaani activities that can make them better than they were yesterday? Why can we not involve our youth in building new houses? Why can we not involve them in building roads? Why can we not involve them in agriculture? Take them to Galana, so that the dream of food security is achieved. We want to see a COVID-19 incentive that is aligned to the Big Four Agenda, stimulates key sectors of the economy, creates jobs for young people, and skills our young people. Madam Temporary Speaker, there are many issues and many lessons learnt, but as far as devolution is concerned, there is still a lot of work to be done. That is why the relevance of the Senate in the political arrangement of this nation cannot be understated. We have a lot of work to ensure that county governments are doing what it is that they are supposed to be doing. There is no other visible service that counties are expected to deliver more than healthcare. Unfortunately, what many of our county governments have done is to take us to the Indian situation. In India, people gave up on their public healthcare system long ago. They do not care. They would rather go to a private service provider than to a government hospital, because they know that they will never get services there. It has become the order of the day. In Kenya, county health workers can be on strike for two months, and nobody cares, because people are used to the failures of the health sector. Devolution was The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}