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{
    "id": 1319754,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1319754/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 370,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "West Mugirango, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Stephen Mogaka",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "At the outset, I want to make my contribution on the basis that there is a constitutional underpinning on why the President has to deliver his State of the Nation Address to this House. We are the representatives of the people. More reason is that after that Speech, it is the duty of this House to make legislative policies and other interventions to make the country prosper. Therefore, it will be a failure on my part if I start taking lamentations to my electorate when it is my duty as a legislator to make the necessary legislative interventions, do the correct oversight on the Executive to ensure that the policy interventions under budgetary directions that are required to take this country where it should be are implemented. I want to thank the President for doing a correct diagnosis of the state of the nation. In Paragraph 7 of his Address, he clearly told the nation that this country is facing three problems which are, external shocks, physical distress and structural imbalances. They are coated with geopolitical conflicts which have caused shortages like that of fuel in this country leading to the devaluation of the dollar. I want to thank the President, for laying bare before this House that this is where we are. I urge us, legislators to rise to the occasion and give the necessary interventions that are required to take our country where we want it to be. We are all aware that the Government does not do anything that has not passed through this House. It is, therefore, wrong for us to start lamenting and punching up a Government that has come to this House with its policies and budgetary proposals which in our wisdom, we have approved and told them to go ahead as we oversee them. I also thank the President for the reason that when he gave his first State of the Nation Address in this House a year ago, he had done the diagnosis and a year later, even before one quarter of his budget has been absorbed, the country has a food surplus and the shame of hunger is behind us. I want to thank the President and ask the Government to continue on that trajectory. For those of us who have not seen a drop in the price of gorogoro in their region, of course we know the answer; it is market forces at play. There are naysayers who never took advantage of the cheap fertiliser and never went to the farms. Since the price will remain where it was, they will have to spend a little more to go to markets where the farmers had gone and took advantage of the cheap fertiliser at a subsidised price. On the state of the national debts, I have a banking background, especially in credit risk analysis. The last thing one wants to suffer from is to be blacklisted as a defaulter. I thank the Government for taking proactive steps to ensure that the Eurobond that was going to blacklist this country is behind us. With that, the Sword of Damocles that was hanging on the country, so that we could not access affordable funding, is behind us. I thank the President and request that he continues in that trajectory. I submit."
}