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{
    "id": 1431467,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431467/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 3823,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Beatrice Elachi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " I will, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I also rise to support the Motion on Consideration of the Second Supplementary Estimates for the Financial Year 2023/2024. I appreciate our Chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the team for appreciating that we all have to stand in the gap for the challenges we face and, more importantly, to ensure that we reduce the budget. Hon. Temporary Speaker, if you look at the whole budget that we are reducing, we have to ask ourselves why we are reducing so much on the social side and leaving more on the defence side, yet that is where our people are suffering. We need to increase resources in the social sectors like education and health. I appreciate what we have given our community health workers and promoters an allocation. I also appreciate that we are looking at Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) in this House. Going forward, we have to ask ourselves how many KMTCs we have now. Can we try and work together so that students can go to the existing facilities rather than build new ones? Those are some of the things to consider. If we want to tighten our belt, then we do not have to do it by building new schools. Instead of building new schools, let us look at the ones that we have and improve their infrastructure. We can see how children can go to the schools rather than every one of us wanting to build an entirely new school, yet we are saying we want to work together. Some schools now have 100 students. You have a whole school, and you will still need to maintain those schools and make them better. Hon. Temporary Speaker, let me speak for Nairobi. Indeed, I know we have a crisis of classrooms and all these challenges facing us. We also want to see that we are improving academically. Yes, we have huge numbers of students in our schools, about 5,000 of them. Even if I improve these schools, I will always know that I will have to look for maintenance funds in the next five years. We also must start to have a moral sense in this House, to believe that Kenyans gave us the opportunity and privilege to make their budgets. When we are making budgets, we see our people feeling agitated. They are in a crisis all over. Nobody understands how an entrepreneur with a start-up can survive in an environment that is not conducive to doing business, like in Kenya. We have decided to have a common tariff within East Africa. I can go to Uganda and start a company, then open a branch in this country. So why are we chasing away people doing business in our country? This is because our business environment is very hurting. In as much as I support, as Parliament we must stand with courage and tell the Executive that our people cannot live like this. We have to do so because we were elected, unlike the Executive. We were voted in, and so we have to stand up and fight for our people. As I finalise, we cannot continue the way we are doing. For example, Nairobi City County gives allotment letters. You find somebody has demolished a building in Kileleshwa because it is on riparian land. Then, tomorrow, you will see another building built there. They are hurting some people, yet they are the ones who allow them to build on riparian land. So, every Kenyan will want to build on riparian land. As leaders, what we are doing is very unfair. Most of us have shops that sell clothes and other things there, but we want to finish Mathare and Ruaraka. This is not right. 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."
}