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{
    "id": 1216040,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1216040/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 197,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": ". Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "One thing I learnt from my teacher who taught me private practice at the School of Medicine at the University of Nairobi is that you must borrow. The problem is how you use the money you have borrowed. There has been a lot of hue and cry about raising it; it is wrong to raise the ceiling on debt. There is nothing wrong. You can raise it on condition that when you borrow the money it is injected into the development aspect of our budget. We start losing it when we borrow money to meet recurrent expenditure. We completely lose it. It is unfortunate that sometimes it must be done but we should move away from this as a matter of fact. My second point is on the GDP of this country. I have been hearing little theories about doing this or that for us to manage our debt. I am not a financial expert and I do not wish to be - the answer lies in one thing - let us grow our GDP. Period. We should move away from the traditional way of growing the GDP so that our financial experts both in public, private practice and those at our teaching and research institutions must now come up with innovative ways of growing our GDP. I am surprised that the schools of engineering at the University of Nairobi (UoN) and other universities are not on the front banner in support of the Government on the issue of housing. The schools of medicine at the UoN and other universities are not at the frontline in supporting the Government on the noble issue of affordable health because inside there, we have opportunities of growing our economy. Let me give you an example of vaccines. The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) working in collaboration with the UoN can start producing vaccines. I speak with clarity of mind because two years ago, Prof. Omu Anzala of the UoN approached me with a proposal of how to start a vaccine laboratory in Nairobi City County. Moreover, because he is a researcher on matters of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), he had already got partners who were willing to invest. When the material matured, he wanted an influential Government person who then could become the face of that initiative. At that time, I was out of Parliament and the only friend I had was then the Deputy President and now President William Ruto. I approached him and he agreed to take the exercise. Two days to, “handshake” Government cancelled it and started harassing Prof. Omu Anzala, and demoted him because he was then entertaining the untouchable Deputy President. Today, a small country such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of only 14 million people who do not have human resource comparable to what we have in Kenya has become a major producer of vaccines. If we were to produce vaccines, we would grow our economy. We need innovations. I saw one of our Senators moving a Motion on sanitary towels and we all supported it. Most of our women Members of Parliament (MPs) in the ‘Lower’ House spend a lot of money giving out sanitary towels."
}