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{
    "id": 1180918,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1180918/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 304,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Rural, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. David Mwalika",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me a chance to also put forth my remarks to this Motion on Consideration of Sessional Paper 1 of 2022 on the National Automotive Policy. At the outset, I support it because it will provide an enabling environment for automotive industry players to realise their potential and position Kenya as a major automotive manufacturer and improve the local automobile assembly ecosystem, in order to expand local market size by promotion of local parts. Vision 2030 and Big Four Agenda put manufacturing sector as one of the pillars of this economy because of its potential to contribute to the GDP significantly. Manufacturing sector creates jobs. Most of the modern jobs are in the manufacturing sector. It promotes productivity and growth in this country. It also promotes innovation of services and trade because most of the people in this sector are in trade and manufacturing. The sector contributes around 8 per cent of the GDP. Automotive is one of the sub- sectors in the manufacturing sector which is growing very fast in Kenya. You can see the growth in the National Economic Survey. Demand for the spares is also growing very fast. However, Kenya remains a small producer of automobiles services as compared to South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco. It is a small player in manufacturing of automobiles. Kenya produced its first car—the Nyayo Car—in 1990s. I do not know what happened to it. It is unfortunate that Kenyans prefer goods which are produced in other countries. If we emphasised using that car and encouraged local manufactures to continue producing it, even if it was moving at 80 Kilometres per hour, we could have improved it by now. We would be a big exporter of vehicles to East and Central Africa. If we continued with that venture, we would be earning a lot of foreign exchange and creating a lot of jobs. Market for cars is quite big in this country. You can see the number of vehicles, saloon and big cars, which we import. We import cars, motorcycles and tractors in this country. We only manufacture new cars for public transport which are the big matatus. Otherwise, we import the rest like Nissans. As a country, we need to think about using our products. Even if we produce a car that is ugly, let us use it. We will improve it as time goes on. However, the moment we think about a Mercedes Benz which is a very good car from Japan or Germany, we will not move. This Policy is very important. As a Parliament, we need to approve it. The Ministry concerned will come up with guidelines to implement it, so that at least we can move. If it is implemented, it will create jobs for our students. There are too many students who are 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."
}