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{
"id": 1441410,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1441410/?format=api",
"text_counter": 156,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Millie Odhiambo-Mabona",
"speaker": null,
"content": "are waiting to enable our local manufacturing agencies to create those sanitary towels, will we tell our periods to stop? Our periods will not stop while you are manufacturing. Our girls will have their menses as usual and the cost that they are used to will be higher because it will come through underground. What I am saying is this: I do not support the Finance Bill. I will give you the reasons why I do not support it. I do not support it because it is devoid of a strong policy underpinning. Secondly, I do not support it because it is not premised on a better model, but on a bitter model. The Kenya Kwanza Government told us that their things are premised on Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), but increasingly, we are seeing it premised on a bitter model. And that is why I will not support it. I will also not support it because it encourages opulence: “Look at how much money I have”; “Look at the price of my watch’’; “I have a Ksh5 million watch”. I will explain the reason, Hon. Speaker. Do not be in a hurry to ask me to explain because I am going to do so. I first talked about a tax system that is devoid of a strong policy underpinning or premised on a flawed policy underpinning. I will give you the example of the eco levy that seeks to strike a balance between the economy and ecology, but it fails miserably to do that. This Government has sponsored or facilitated roads in Mfangano Island and the tarmac in Rusinga Island, even though they are taking pretty long. If you use the taxation model that they are proposing, then it means that if a contractor, who is doing those roads and earning billions, destroys the environment, the fisherman from Remba, Ringiti, Rusinga, Mfangano and Sukuru Islands, who makes at most Ksh1,000, will be asked to repair that person's damage through tax, forgetting the Public Private Partnership (PPP) principle. The PPP principle provides that the person who destroys the environment is the one who should pay the damage, and not me or the omena fisherman who is making Ksh1,000. They earn so little and yet you expect them to pay the tax of a person who is earning billions doing that road. I do not support this tax. The second example I am going to give is on the issue of smartphones. I thank Hon. Rachael Nyamai for mentioning that when she talked to one of the ladies she is sponsoring her education, she told her that she is doing TikTok . We do not seem to understand how that relates to this tax. I will now tell her how it relates to this tax. After this, Hon. Rachael Nyamai, myself and others will be on TikTok, and the girls will be making money on TikTok while imitating us. Under this proposal, we are telling them we are taxing you for the use of TikTok and yet, they are doing that because there are no jobs. They have become innovative and looked for their own jobs. After they have their own jobs and industry that has not solidified like teaching or law, we want to kill the same industry that is helping the young people. That is why ‘Gen Zs’ were on the streets. I was so thrilled when I was shown a photo of a young girl who looks like me, and some people were saying: ‘‘Hon. Millie, we can see you are here. You can now retire.’’ I wish she was from my constituency because I would have retired tomorrow. Yesterday, I was with my niece who I have raised in my house since she was in primary school. I tried all means to divert her attention from what was going on, but she still managed to sneak out. This morning, she told me… Before I get to what she was telling me, I asked her: “Can I give you a lift to town? She told me, ‘‘No auntie. I cannot be associated with Members of Parliament. Your generation has messed this country and we have to fix it as Gen Z’’. As a country, if we do not take Super Tuesday as a wake-up call, then I do not know what else we will take as a wake-up call. I want to tell the President, who I served with in the same Committee in Parliament and was my classmate at the university, to fire those guys who are giving him economic advice. They are not helping you at all. How do you even imagine taxing something like bread, even if it is a joke? You have carried that joke too far. You can crack those jokes elsewhere. You can find a situation where the young people have burnt 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."
}