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{
    "id": 1213125,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1213125/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 477,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "That means Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania repay these loans 100 times more than the amount that the United States of America (USA), France and Canada will pay. The Global North has rigged the financial system against the Global South. Madam Temporary Speaker, I was very proud to see President Ruto taking up this issue at the African Union (AU) in the recently concluded meetings. We need to ask these questions. Not only in this Parliament and the continental and the international level. Something is wrong. We are told that we are backward. Kenya is told we have loans and are not doing well. However, the same institution gives USA a loan at 0.01 per cent while Kenya is given at 10 per cent. Meaning, if I am taking a USD100 million facility, I will pay 100 times more than what USA will pay. How fair is this situation to Kenya and the African countries? As we celebrate the giving of these facilities to us, we must start questioning what we can do to raise our own and assess the sources of revenue. As Africa, we must start talking about where we can get money. Let us involve the African Development Bank (ADB) and the infrastructure and the multilaterals that are based in Africa more. This will be better than working with institutions like the World Bank and other multilaterals that are rigged against us. Madam Temporary Speaker, the problem with the Senate and the National Assembly in Kenya, is that they have no idea of what is happening. We have a problem. We must consistently fight to restructure the global financial institutions that have been rigged against the Global South. We must continue this battle. I am very proud to see our President, having understood the issues as they are, debating them at the African level at the AU functions. We pray that this will continue. As I contribute, I state again that it is time we relook at our debt level. This country needs to find a way of raising our own money so that we do not have to go to these Western institutions that have really impoverished us. They say they are helping us but in actual fact, they are helping their brothers and sisters in the Western world. They say they are giving us aid and they want us to celebrate but in actual fact, they are making money out of us. When you charge me 100 times more than another country in the West, you are actually riding on our back. We need to even discuss the loans that have been paid and the ones that we are servicing. As we thank these people who have helped us so far, we need to ask ourselves what we can do as a country and as Africa. Madam Temporary Speaker, as we pass this report, I urge this Senate to think again. President Ruto and his administration have started certain initiatives. Let us support initiatives such as the national lottery, the hustler fund and creating a culture of saving for this country. It is because these people are also giving us money from what they saved from their own finances. Let us raise the saving culture so that we can borrow from within our resources. If we borrow from within, our country will not go into more debt and we will not be exposed to discrimination by the World Bank and other Bretton Woods Institutions. This is how we are going to help this country grow and not from these loans."
}