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{
    "id": 1192558,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1192558/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 292,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui East, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Nimrod Mbai",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "bring to your attention the fact that this is my first opportunity to speak in this 13th Parliament. Therefore, allow me to congratulate my constituents, the people of Kitui East, for electing me to this august House. I would like to inform them that we have something to celebrate for. Today, His Excellency President William Ruto hosted the President of the Republic of South Africa and the centre of discussion was how Africa is going to do away with reliance on coal energy. Coal mining in the Mui Basin is one of the things we have been very much against. Previous governments have been skewed towards coal mining, but we now have a Government that is discouraging it. Hon. Elachi’s Motion is very important. I can see that everyone is concerned and in support of it. The SMEs are people in business who feed their children, take them to school, pay their school fees and pay for all other services just like everyone else. They buy unga at the same price with Members of Parliament. When we talk of facilitating them to do business in a better way, there is nothing more noble that this House can do other than supporting those people who comprise of a big percentage of employers in this country. Hon. Temporary Speaker, one of the main objectives of government is to provide an enabling environment for doing business. It is upon this Government to provide an enabling environment for SMEs to conduct their business. It is the business of the Legislature to provide policies and guidelines towards the same. Through Hon. Elachi, this Arm of the Government has been called upon to engage in a very important thing. Part of my contribution to the Motion, which is something that Hon. Elachi would like to note, is that this will require vigorous and robust public participation. We are all in support of what the hon. Member is seeking to do. None of the Members here know how to hustle out there, or how to survive on a small jua kali business. So, the stakeholders are the people who, on a daily basis, engage in that kind of business. Through this Motion, those people have an opportunity to speak to this policy. What do they want from the Government? What do they think? In which ways would they want the Government to assist them? This also touches on the devolved units of Government. The county governments moderate those businesses on a daily basis. They should also be called upon to participate as stakeholders. We need to hear what SMEs owners have to say about their governors. Hon. Temporary Speaker, many things have been said and I would not want to repeat them. However, I would want to raise the issue of stakeholder management and public participation. The actual people involved in SMEs should be listened to. As a House, we should provide enough budget for public participation. The county governments should be brought on board as stakeholders as we work on policy guidelines for SMEs to do their business. Wealth creation is among the things that brought this Government into power. This is how we can support our people to create wealth so that, in turn, they can pay taxes and achieve what we refer to as expanding the tax base. We cannot expand the tax base without making good policies for the people to create wealth. It is time we expedited this process. With those remarks, I beg to stand in solidarity with the Mover of this Motion."
}