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{
    "id": 1250567,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1250567/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1665,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kiharu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ndindi Nyoro",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "On industry, we have allocated money. We have Ksh4.7 billion as the first batch that we are giving as conditional grants to our counties. In all the 47 counties of Kenya, we are building aggregation centres. Therefore, the national Government will be giving our counties Ksh4.7 billion and we can take off Ksh200 million from each and capitalise as we go along. Hon. Deputy Speaker, we have allocated Ksh3 billion to start industrial parks in six gazetted Economic Processing Zones (EPZ) sites. We will also be moving; forward after they have absorbed that money to seek an allocation of a similar amount for us to have very modern and robust six industrial centres across the country. On tertiary, I need to say something that we deliberated upon. If you look at the economy of Kenya, there is a little imbalance because while we are doing what we can in terms of primary, we are doing a lot in terms of industries, but service seems to leap forward; ahead. This is because if you look at our economy, 65 per cent is being generated by service. What is the service servicing? That is the question. For a solid economy, the other two must be given direction to increase in terms of percentage. In our country, which is a match, service industry which is banking, insurance, vintage and all the others are the companies that are reporting every year growth in profits. But why do we not see the same in industry and primary production? We have to think about that as a House. We cannot have an economy growing on the facilitative side which is service, yet the other solid sectors, which are primary and industry, are stagnating. In terms of policy, there is no way we can have vintage going miles ahead and banking going miles ahead. What are these banks banking? Therefore, the more the reason to have the two other sides of production also being capacitated to grow. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I wish to say a few things and today I will not belabour a lot of points. I wish to say something about inflation. After all the good language that we talk here, the people of Kenya want it to reflect on the cost of living. Whatever we call high cost of living has everything to do with inflation. In Kenya, and across the world, inflation has three elements; first, there is a huge component that is sensitive to all Kenyans and all ordinary citizens of the world-food inflation. The second segment of inflation is the one we call fuel inflation, and the last one is coal inflation, which is non-fuel and non-food inflation. What is it that has been driving the inflation especially in Kenya? Unfortunately, it is the food and fuel inflation. But then, how do we arrest this because all these things somehow find their way into the budget? Arresting food and fuel inflation can only be done through fiscal policies. You cannot do this using monetary policies. Throwing or mopping up money does not cure issues that would ordinarily be cured by fiscal policies. The escalating food prices across the world are fiscal in nature. The supply chains have been cut off, especially after the Russia-Ukraine war. The two countries combined are the biggest exporters of wheat. They were the biggest ‘importers’ of edible oils. Therefore, part of the genesis of the inflation part that we have in Kenya and especially in edible oils is the war in Europe. Hon. Deputy Speaker, on fuel, you cannot arrest this using monetary tools. Global oil prices and everything in between cannot be addressed by just having our Monetary Policy Committee meeting and regularly giving new interest rates and especially express rates. That leaves the monetary policy to only deal with core inflation. Therefore, because the Budget is one of the important tools of addressing fiscal policies, we are allocating money to address the supply chain of food in agriculture to ensure we have enough supplies. It is for the same reason The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}