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{
    "id": 1201865,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1201865/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 119,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Maanzo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13589,
        "legal_name": "Maanzo Daniel Kitonga",
        "slug": "maanzo-daniel-kitonga"
    },
    "content": "to other countries in the world, we need to utilise the water we have. The President talked about that. On a positive note, the President talked about encouraging people to save, which is good. I believe he is going to implement it. That is Paragraph 25 which talks about access to affordable credit. He is looking for a magic formula. He proposed the Ministry of Cooperatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). We can raise our national savings by forming cooperatives. In fact, the best way to do it would be through Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs). In the USA, for example, they are called credit unions. They are the ones who hold the economy of America. We have 14 million Kenyans in the cooperative movement. All of us in this House are savers in the Parliament Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (SACCO). You know how quick and effective it is. You can borrow and within an hour, you have the money to sort out your emergencies, for instance, by buying food for people. Currently, there are families that are starving and we help them in our own small ways. At the moment, we invest in co-operatives and we have serious institutions like the Harambee SACCO which is even bigger than a bank. We have the Co-operative Bank which has affordable ways of loaning co-operatives so that they can serve Kenyans. We are talking of housing. There are land co-operatives and housing co- operatives where if Kenyans join the co-operatives in large numbers, especially the youth, the money of the so called Hustlers Fund can effectively be given to the business beginners through SACCOs, whether they are motorbike, matatu and whatever SACCOs formation. The business people and Jua kali people have SACCOs. There is a good SACCO in Kisumu where they have saved so much money from working in the Jua kali sector. We should encourage Kenyans to save and this can only be done through the SACCOs. Once you put everyone into that movement, then it will be easier to distribute the Hustlers Fund through them. If you just give out the money free to the people, you will make them poorer than they have ever been. Every time you give someone free money, he becomes poor and poor. However, the moment you help them fish by giving them the beginning capital and you regulate it properly to make sure it is not consumed, then we are beginning to transform this nation. I believe that is not just the responsibility of the President, but it is the responsibility of each one of us, the 42 million Kenyans, so that we can invest and leave wealth for the generations to come. On the issue of electricity, the President said: “Concerning electricity, we shall facilitate the development of innovative and effective modalities to provide better off-grid systems including enabling consumers to form small co-operatives for that purpose.” I have done this in Makueni before. We had donors who gave solar systems to markets and places where electricity has not yet been provided from the grid. They were able to make their own electricity and you can even sell it to the grid as solar. Again, co- operatives come in handy here."
}