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{
    "id": 1097485,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1097485/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 319,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Gatanga, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Joseph Nduati",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13338,
        "legal_name": "Joseph Nduati Ngugi",
        "slug": "joseph-nduati-ngugi-2"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. From the outset, I support the amendments. I have heard the Chair say that it is the young who are affected. However, it is not only the young who are affected by the digital lending, but even mature people and Members of Parliament here are also affected and cannot claim that we do not borrow from the platforms. The digital lending has facilitated very easy borrowing at a very high cost and we are opening up very many applications where you can borrow from one platform to pay to the other. Credit lines are also open for you to buy credit. One of the challenges with the digital borrowing is that when you borrow, you have to pay whatever you have borrowed in total. I have found it very difficult. If for example I borrow Kshs20,000 from Fuliza and I want to send you Kshs20,000, it means that I must have Kshs40,000 making my life very difficult. From the records that I have, mobile money and digital lending has overtaken whatever the banks are lending. The statistics which I have is that mobile money and digital lending total loan portfolio is about 57 per cent. Banks have now gone down to 22 per cent and SACCOs, which we have relied on are at 17 per cent. This means that because of making it very easy to borrow, we are trapping our poor people, putting them in debts which they cannot pay and allowing them even to borrow money that is not helping them. Fridays are known for betting. When you meet young people in offices on Friday afternoons, they are normally very busy not working, but betting. These platforms have facilitated ease access to money which is used for gambling. We need to come up with a mechanism to control especially how many applications one can subscribe to. If you belong to Fuliza, let it be so. Let us not allow our young people to belong to 13 platforms. This will kill them. Also, the interest rates are very high if you were to work out yearly. It is very expensive, and so, we will need to come up with a way on how we can control the interests and I want to propose that one to the Chairman. Sometimes, for you to be allowed to borrow money, the rating which is used by Safaricom is very unfair because they use your M-Pesa platform. We normally use some young people to send money, and if the platform is used to credit them and they are allowed to borrow even Kshs30,000, it is not fair. It is high time that as a country, we supported our young people. Otherwise, if we continue with this, we will kill generations and put them in debts which they will not pay for a long time. With those few remarks, I support."
}