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{
    "id": 1441751,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1441751/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 497,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ndiwa, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Martin Owino",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " I appreciate the time. As a representative of the great people of Ndhiwa Constituency and, by extension, the whole country that is suffering under the yoke of the Finance Bill 2023, I oppose this Bill. The effects of the 2023 Finance Bill still weigh on our people. I am not sure where my colleagues represent. However, some kids in my constituency go to bed and school while hungry, even as we brag about the price of unga going down. The number of school dropouts has gone up because parents cannot afford fees or tuition. This has resulted in mental health problems. Statistics today say that one in four in this country is suffering from mental health. It is only that they have not reached the manifestation stage. Colleagues, one in four may be brewing up for mental disease even as we are here. Joblessness is up. People are full of the frustrations, poverty and diseases that we promised to eradicate at Independence. More important is the crude death rate that we are observing across the communities, however much we gloss over it. People are just dropping dead and being taken to the morgue. It has become very rampant because we are over-burdening Kenyans with taxes. Hon. Speaker, the problem is not that Kenyans are not paying taxes, but that the Government is lavishly spending beyond its means. At one point, I was very happy to hear that the Kenya Kwanza Government would cut its coat according to its cloth. We do not know where that went. We know that if we want more, we should pay less taxes. That is how you stimulate an economy. The idea that Kenyans are not paying enough tax and that if this Bill does not pass, there will be no development is false. Kenyans are over-taxed. Other countries have implemented Innovation Tax Compliance (ITC), which has three pillars. First, you must develop trust between tax administrators and taxpayers. That is where we must eliminate wastage, theft and direct wrong utilisation of funds. The second pillar is tax enforcement. We have to invest in that to seal all the tax evaders. We will collect more taxes than adding taxes to Kenyans. Third is facilitation, the mechanisation of those taxes. They are telling us that they propose to remove tax on bread, edible oil, mobile money transfer, motor vehicles, sugar-cane transportation and diapers and yet, they are the ones who collected the views from the public. Why did they not put it in the Bill? You are lying, and Kenyans are listening. Those children you are referring to are informed. Do not say they were misled. If you say so, you are the one who is lost. Thank you, Hon. Speaker."
}