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{
    "id": 1043593,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1043593/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 225,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "You remember that earlier this year, while I served as the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, I was seated around where Hon. Mwathi is seated. I cautioned this House that we were making a terrible mistake by sacrificing revenues at a time our economy was already battered even pre-COVID. The economy did not go wrong with COVID-19. Our revenues were terribly battered even pre-COVID. I cautioned the House. I rise today to once again caution us as the people’s representatives because we have been sent to this House to represent the people and speak on their behalf because they all cannot stand and speak for themselves here. As many Members have said, our people are suffering. Today, our doctors are on strike or threatening to go on strike over payment and other welfare issues. Kenyans are dying. Others cannot even afford a meal. Others keep texting us to send fare to go home for Christmas. Others are looking for money to pay their rent. The situation is dire. I cannot remember in my short 44 years any other time this country was in the position that it is in now. We are on the verge of being unable to meet our international obligations in terms of our foreign debt repayment in the very foreseeable future. With regard to salaries for civil servants, we do not just have threats of reduction but delays. Members of Parliament have witnessed this even for your own staff in your constituency offices and even yourselves for those who still earn salaries. We are heading into January and schools are reopening. Close to six million Kenyan parents have no jobs. Two million who are in formal employment have no jobs. Four million others who are in the informal sector have no jobs. They have no source of income. Those people will depend and rely on part of the bursaries that we give through the NG-CDF. To date, we are being promised in other fora that some Kshs2 billion will be dispensed. I do not know whether it is to cater for arrears of the 2019/2020 Financial Year or to help us give our people bursaries for 2021. Needless to say, the Government needs money, but it needs to target the right place to raise its money from. Raising money from people who are dying is immoral. Raising money from people who are sick is uncouth. I will give you a very good example of probable areas where we could raise money from. Members of Parliament have been beneficiaries of the new driving licences from the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA). You were all lining up at the Members’ Lobby the other day acquiring the new driving licences. If you look at the tender for those driving licences, it came with associated services that would even enhance collection of fines and penalties on our roads. Speaking to staff at the NTSA and elsewhere, they will tell you that, that programme was not just about issuing cards and new fancy driving licences. The chip it comes with was to be integrated with the banking systems to be able to offer instant fines that would enable the Government to collect close to Kshs50 billion a year. Today, we are seated here but you will not see a member of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. I have just spoken to a few of them. We are talking about raising tax and lying to Kenyans that we are taking them to pre-COVID-19 time. We will go to worse than pre-COVID-19 times in terms of tax."
}