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{
    "id": 1166035,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1166035/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 217,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary speaker Sir, as a country we are doing very badly economically to the extent that we cannot fathom how we are going to pay our current public debt. Counties are trying to really on the National government to get guarantees with regard to them participating in the economy. Looking at the public debt around counties, they have taken commercial loans in that regard. This Bill is important even for Central Kenya region where I am the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mlima House. We would want to have Central Kenya Development Authority, which would harness issues to do with, for example, the water towers which we rarely gain from. We also have Tourism also and any other form of natural resources that is there within the central Kenya region. However, this kind of centralized dependency on equitable share has become very easy to go by. Yet even when this is the first charge of any given budget, we are very constrained. Let me tell you the reason. Recently you saw our economy has been valued at about Kshs13T. I beg to differ. There is no way our economy could have grown from 9.8T to 13T within a period of one year just because our public debt has increased to over 11T. We are looking at an insolvent country. It is important to start asking ourselves, how we go back to productivity. I think I heard Sen. Murkomen talk about this. There are three factors that are very critical in productivity, competitiveness and the market. Some of the products that we have can be ably consumed by the local market. For example, if you look at the amount of sugar that we import vis-à-vis what is produced it is amazing to see that to produce one ton of sugar in this country, you use about 800 dollars while in Brazil you only do it at 250 dollars. How do we make sure that we improve our competitiveness? How do we reduce the non-tariff barriers so that we access markets? Right now, look at the border of Tanzania or let us talk about East Africa. You see so many Lorries bringing maize, beans and potatoes from Tanzania yet Kenya has the capacity to do so but then we are not doing it. This is because we have given our people what we call development, which in this regard is the infrastructure. Since time immemorial and especially in this administration, a lot of infrastructure has been developed. That is the hardware. Whose goods are actually on our roads and railways? They definitely are not goods of the common mwananchi or wanjiku on the ground. If you look at Schedule Four of the Constitution, we have not seen counties going out of their way to establish the so called industries. I heard my friend, Sen. M. Kajwang’ talking about one factory per county. It is possible to have even one factory in every county but very few have been able to do so. For example, if you look at Ukambani, you will find that it will be more profitable for them counties to concentrate more on fruits such as mangoes. That way their counties will be more productive. Looking at avocado, one litre of avocado oil costs Kshs6,000. Kenyans do not need the Kshs6,000 handouts that has been promised by Azimio la kuzimia . What they need is a situation where you are producing these avocadoes, selling one litre for Kshs6000. If you are producing 10 litres a day or even a month, you have your"
}