Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1180905,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1180905/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 291,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Manufacturing acts as a growth catalyst for economies. We know the levels that economies that have gone into industrialisation and manufacturing have risen to in terms of development. That development has to be informed by policy hence this Sessional Paper which is one such policy. Such policy ought to be intentional and deliberate. I have scanned through the 52 pages of the National Automotive Policy to see if it has lived up to the tenets of being intentional and deliberate. I support it. This policy will provide an enabling environment for all players in the automotive industry. Beyond that, it shall start us on the journey to solve some of the problems that we are facing in cities such as mass transport, mass transit, public transport, congestion and development of infrastructure in the transport sector. We are not dreaming and building castles in the air. It is even happening in Africa. Nigeria is in automotive production and so are Egypt, South Africa and Morocco. Kenya was well on its way to getting to the stage where South Africa was in the 1980s. Hon. Temporary Speaker, if your memory serves you right, you will remember that we had the Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers Limited (KVM) domiciled in Thika where they would assemble the Land Rover. In fact, at some point in the 1980s, there was an offer from Peugeot, the French company, for us to manufacture a very popular variant of the Peugeot called the Peugeot 504. I do not know how these offers slipped through our fingers and how we lost them, but by now, we probably would have been at the level of South Africa and Egypt. Currently, Kenya only manufactures parts. Even then, it is not actual manufacturing, it is an assembly of parts. The National Automotive Policy even lists the parts that we manufacture in this country. We are only able to manufacture 37 parts in the 60 years that we have been independent. You can imagine that we are only able to assemble 37 parts as a country. The policy becomes important because we can take over from where we left off in the 1980s when we were talking about Thika becoming the Bristol or the Manchester of East Africa and the industrial capital of East Africa. At this point, we shall go beyond Thika because one of the things that has been captured in this policy is zoning. That is where we delocalise manufacturing not only of motor vehicles, but even the components and parts that will go into it. Your native county can take a part and build an industry around it. It could be a wiper, a headlight, or a bumper. Busia County where Hon. Oundo comes from would take up another part and manufacture it. We in Dagoretti South Constituency would be left to do the finishing. We can be left to imagine how to make leather seats and beautiful car finishings out of the hides and skins of cows that we slaughter at Githinjiro, Dagoretti Market. Hon. Temporary Speaker, a component that has been captured in the National Automotive Policy is the element of beefing up research. When we beef up research, we shall now start to understand how we can become an industrial country. I vehemently refute and oppose the words that were spoken by Hon. Makilap saying that for us to develop, we need to reduce CRE, history and soft subjects. One of the reasons why we are suffering as a developing country is because we do not emphasise soft subjects in schools. Any developed country has a place for its poets, authors, historians and humourists. As the West was developing, so were their artists at that time. If you do away with soft subjects like fine art, who will design those cars? The art of designing an automobile is a multibillion- dollar industry. Countries that have mastered the design of motor vehicles are exporting their talents. Countries like France, Malaysia and India are exporting their designers because as we develop, we cannot have a dichotomy of disciplines in academia. We need to develop our scientists and artists. Research will also inform what kind of car we want to develop. In this day and age, we have to start thinking about a green vehicle. How about Kenya becoming the first country to design ways in which we can use biofuels to power our cars in Africa? We should take the lead on that so that it becomes our M-Pesa. In the same way that we were able to leapfrog other The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}