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{
    "id": 1353369,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1353369/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Baringo North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Joseph Makilap",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Speaker, at the moment, we need to attract dollars to our country. What plan do we have for the National Treasury? We are telling them to run away from expensive loans; domestic borrowing. Let us go for concessional loans that have long periods of repayment and long grace period that will help us restructure our loans, pay and reduce our fiscal deficit. We have just passed the Supplementary Estimates I. Members do not know that it was an increase. Why? Because we are trying to accommodate the shocks occasioned by the fluctuating exchange rates. The dollar is putting this country in a quagmire. It is also the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that the country lives within its means. The moment we prepare a balanced budget for Kenya, we shall run away from the Bretton Woods Institutions. I want to challenge the Members and this country. Which country in the world has survived because of loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)? The IMF and World Bank will always use their loans to colonise Africa – to ensure that the economies of Africa do not match the bigger economies of the west. It is only what comes out from our country that will change Kenya. It is not what is borrowed from the Bretton Woods Institutions. There is no country in the world that has ever grown its economy on loans because they will always hook a chain on the dollar, like the Americans are doing. Whenever they have an issue of inflation in their country, they create a problem for all of us. Hon. Speaker, when the dollar problem is created, and it has a multiplicity effect we call ‘multicollinearity’ in Mathematics. This is the effect of one independent variable resulting in a problem for many other independent variables. That is what is happening in our country. We encourage production in agriculture and tourism to attract more tourists in our country. We also ask the Ministry of National Treasury and Economic Planning, and the CBK, to come up with a raft of policies to tame the continuous rise of the US dollar against the Kenya shilling, so that our currency can stabilise. The cost of importing fuel in Kenya, Tanzania and other countries in the region is the same. What makes the difference among Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda is the number of taxes and levies imposed on the petroleum products. As a Committee, we have made recommendations that will turn around the economy, if the Ministry of the National Treasury and Economic Planning, and the CBK, implement them. We shall live within our means. We are asking Members to avoid putting so much 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."
}