Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1192538,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1192538/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 272,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Buuri, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Mugambi Rindikiri",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I want to thank Hon. Elachi because, if we put all those together and have one stock knowing that this is the number of SMEs in the country, then the Government will do better. I want to state that the Government has not been doing very well in this area. We have no statistics. I wonder what the role of the Kenya Bureau of Statistics is. It has failed the jua kali sector in Kenya. I have never seen a report indicating the number of SMEs from Buuri such that when the funds come, they are allocated to a certain number of SMEs. That is one failure by the Government, and I hope the current Government is going to correct it. It is upon Members of Parliament to stand with the SMEs. There is no way we are going to be a future industrial nation if we are not going to put emphasis on those small innovators and artisans. That is where the Hustler Fund is going to benefit the people. I pity the thinking of Prof. Oundo. I thought he will congratulate the President, but I am surprised that he was talking about Kibaki, Kenyatta, and sijui Raila, who have nothing to do with what we are discussing here. We should be asking Members to go back to their constituencies, identify those people and try to sort them out. That is what matters right now. This is something we have not been doing. Now that we have a Government which is ready to stand with the small entrepreneurs, we shall go far. Hon. Temporary Speaker, we belong to the same political thinking. I think that through SMEs, we will expand our tax base. They are not going to remain static. They are going to grow to medium-size enterprises and from there, we will move to another level; and that is what we need. We need to expand our tax base. We cannot do so if we do not develop the SMEs. We cannot increase employment in this country if we cannot fund the SMEs. We have talent and we cannot annex it if we do not support those people. We are creating opportunity for us to be a country of innovators, and we cannot do so unless we identify those people and stand with them. I want to encourage the people of Buuri and the young talented people who are spread across all sectors. The mistake many of us make is to say that we are manufacturing. That is not true because we have SMEs in music, food making and selling sugar-cane. We keep making a mistake of saying that we will deal with the manufacturers. We must diversify by identifying our talents and sectors down there. Even football is an enterprise. I have seen young people who have formed football clubs and they are now competing with one another. They have turned themselves into an enterprise of hospitality. Look at that kind of innovation. The call for policy consolidation by Hon. Elachi needs to be supported. We must stand as a House to make sure that we start implementing what we pass here, because that has been the greatest mistake. I can assure you of the growth that we shall experience for the next 10 years though the Ministry of Co-operative and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) under the current administration of His Excellency Willian Ruto. The change will be enormous and it will be a game changer for the economy of this country. Many people are asking where the money is going to come from but, sometimes, we need to pray to God. If we have reached this far, just as William Samoei Ruto has with his slogan of supporting hustlers, I can assure you that God will provide the finances. How we can make this possible is by stopping wastage. With those remarks, I support."
}