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{
    "id": 1119278,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1119278/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 355,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "after the election with our wheelbarrows realizing that bread is now Kshs7,000, and we only got Kshs6,000. Let us be real with Kenyans. This morning I was on radio. I told Kenyans that between now and August 2022, we will be told many things. Politicians will come with all manner of promises. This is where the future of our country lies. Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. has said that an asset might go. Let me be the devil’s advocate. I think that an asset could go. That is when we ask for the contract for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), we were not given. What will happen? I am just thinking. I am not proposing. If the Chinese take our port, what do we do? Of course, they will not take the port. Maybe it will be good, because they will not move the port to China. They will have to make sure that it is efficient, so that they pay themselves. They will increase berths and extend the SGR to Congo, pay themselves back and go, but maybe not. It is matter of national pride. How does it feel to us for such great assets of our country to be in the hands of people whom we owe money that we took because of our large appetite? Madam Temporary Speaker, I do not even think it is an issue of transparency concerns. Of course, they are there, but it is how we are doing these humongous budgets and increasing deficit. It is piling year in, year out. The next budget that is going to come to this House, especially since we are going into an election year, will be bigger than this Budget. We are digging ourselves into a hole with our eyes wide open. Madam Temporary Speaker, with those many remarks, I support the Report. I hope that we can get an opportunity to actually strengthen it. At some point, the President had said that he would stop new projects. I think we had a commitment of no new projects. Our budgets in the last two years were full of very many new projects. Let us think of it. This is not to castigate the Government, but help them see where the problem is. As I finish, I remember that in 2015, I was in the National Assembly. I asked the PBO to give me a compendium of stalled projects in 2015. They came up to Kshs1 trillion. I would hate to ask Mr. Masinde to give me the same compendium as of 2021. That is where the problem is."
}