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{
    "id": 1262251,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1262251/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 336,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "With this kind of Bill, we shall also have to change our appetites and say that we are going to consume in Nairobi, Busia, Mandera, and Lodwar because we shall be producing products for ourselves. There is a call for patriotism in Article 10 of the Constitution of Kenya. It is not an empty statement. It is a call to action; to be patriotic. One way for us to be patriotic is to produce products that we can be proud of. You have a story told by the former Russian President Gorbachev. He says that when they were in school somewhere in Western Europe, there were two Japanese students and that was in the early 1950s. These two Japanese fellows had a pile of Japanese pencils. These pencils could not write very well like the German pencils and so they kept on breaking, but the Japanese students said that they cannot buy German pencils; they would use the Japanese pencils. Today, you can see where Japan is. That is what we call patriotism. We need to love this country. Sen. Cherargei paraphrased what President Kennedy said, when he said: “Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country”. This kind of Bill gives us the opportunity to translate those words into action. This is because our people will then be getting down to create and innovate ideas. Once they create and innovate, with research and development, we shall have products with which we can knock on the door of the world and say here we come, made in Kenya. We have heard of this story whereby even the enzymes that are used to age genes; the stony genes, were picked from Baringo and taken to the USA and developed for these stone-wash genes. Where were our scientists? They were there but had been consumed by organizations that only allow them to put their minds second to the minds of their employer. With an innovation center that is Kenyan owned, we will put our minds second to the mind of the Republic of Kenya. That is why this Bill is important to me. That is why I support it wholeheartedly and pray that the rest of us give it the support that it deserves. We hope that this Bill will be assented to and then implemented. We have got a problem in this country where there is a lot of beautiful legislation and policy frameworks, but they are just taken and put on the shelves. Right now, we are looking at this law called the Protection of Victims of Crime Act. It has been on the books for about 12 years now, but it has never been implemented. These are the kind of things that we should also look at. We must come up with a compelling mechanism within this Bill to ensure that it is implemented. We should also give a timeframe so that it does not just become a beautiful Bill or a piece of poetry on the shelves. It should be something that has got teeth to bite. If it is not affected, there should to be consequences. This is because, without innovation, we are facing an existential threat. We cannot afford to depend on other people to innovate for us."
}