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{
    "id": 1319517,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1319517/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 133,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nandi County, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Cynthia Muge",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to make comments regarding the President’s Address. I first want to appreciate the President for ensuring that he fulfilled his constitutional duty to address this House on the State of the Nation. As I make a comment on the economy of this country, I want to say that I lack what many people call a lived experience. When we talk about the Gross Domestic product (GDP) of this country being at 0.6 per cent in 2002, I was in Class One. In 2013, when we talk about the GDP of this country doing better after the Kibaki era, I was a very timid first year student in the university. In 2017, when I had just opened my eyes and I was a Member of the County Assembly, the GDP of this nation was at 4.9 per cent. In 2022, when we were campaigning, the GDP of this country was at 4.8 per cent and in 2023, which is this year, the year when the President gave his Address, the GDP is at 5.5 per cent. When a Member says that there has been no progress made so far, I wonder if I am the only person who is seeing these things. I ably compensate my lack of lived experience with reading, listening and asking questions. The statistics of this country show that we are doing better than we were in 2022. When some Kenyans went to the streets with sufurias earlier this year, most of them were complaining about the cost of food. During his Address, the President spoke about the cost of food. I can confirm that in Kapserton Village in Mosop Constituency, where I come from, we are asking farmers who harvested many bags of maize to stop selling them at Ksh2,500 a bag. We are asking them to sell them to the Government which is offering a better price of Ksh4,000 a bag. That tells you that the complaint about the cost of unga that took some Kenyans to the streets with sufurias has been ably sorted by the President who has made deliberate decisions to lower the cost of production of that particular product. We are not being honest when we say that there has been no change. We have had change. We are not yet where we are going, but we still have faith to get there. Secondly, human beings would naturally see negative things. They rarely see the positive things. When we sit here and say that we have not seen any development, I pride myself in this President considering that it is this House that passed the Bills that are going to enable the Universal Health Coverage (UHC); every Kenyan will have access to medical care. Kenyans will no longer bear the burden of selling their land or property to afford medical care. Since I came to life in terms of understanding things, it is the first time that I am hearing the Government saying that it is going to pay for the Eurobond debt. According to the President’s Address, it is this same Government that has hired a whopping 56,750 teachers. Every Member of this House who represents a constituency, special interest groups or a county can speak and be a witness to that. This same House has live experiences of what the President was talking about. I cannot speak to the examples that the 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."
}