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{
    "id": 1192607,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1192607/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 341,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Masinga, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Joshua Mwalyo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to say something about the development of a unified national policy on Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs). First of all, I would like to thank Hon. Elachi for developing this policy because this is where many of our people are. Majority of the workers and voters are in the SMEs. In our rural areas people operate shops, vegetable stalls and welding shops where they weld windows and doors. These are the people that made us to come to this House. A Motion of this kind in this House takes care of them. The SMEs are the drivers of our economy. They are the people that circulate money from one person to another because they deal in small and fast-moving items. For example, in the markets, they sell vegetables that we eat every day. They wake up every morning at 4.00 a.m. to go and sell their wares. Some go to buy and sell there. Others go to the market on the market days to broker cows and sell them again later and get their money. Some traders buy chicken to sell. All this is done in the name of making ends meet. These are the people who need to be taken care of by this policy. We are aware that when Dubai was opened, people used to come together and buy between 50 and100 kilos of bales of clothes. They would put clothes together in one container and have it measured by the feet that it occupied. Thus they would only be charged the space they occupied with their wares. All that again was done in the name of making ends meet. These are the people who need to be taken care by this policy because if credit is made available to them, they will progress. Some of these people do not own even a title deed or property that can be charged in a bank. Therefore, the best thing is to make a policy so that will enable them to access credit. You remember when Equity Bank was starting, it started with the mama mboga, welders and those traders who do not bank. That is how it tapped their potential and grew to be the bank it is today. If you go to a bank today, you will find that there is a section and an officer who deals with SMEs. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) normally gives credit to the banks to lend out to the SMEs because they know they have the potential and have customers on a daily basis. People construct small and big houses every day and welders make windows and doors for them. Thus, those are the people that the banks are trying to recruit as their customers. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I thank the Member who has brought this Motion. I think it is timely because I would like to see those people in Masinga Constituency who only sell and consume the profit on the same day grow from that kind of trading to advance to another level. If the banks can listen to SMEs, this economy would grow. I equally thank God that the President has come with the idea of the Hustler Fund of which it will be available to SACCOs and organized groups whereby money will be available. If we actualize that, then we will grow this economy as quickly as possible."
}