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{
    "id": 1501921,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1501921/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 123,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "“To my understanding, the concerns and issues voiced by millions of Kenyans about the state of our nation deserve meaningful engagement, thorough understanding and thoughtful response.” Prior to that, the President had indicated that the Address that he was giving was coming as a national address under a very important backdrop of the events of this year. Therefore, I must assess that Address based on those three parameters. Let me start by saying that I put a value judgement to the President's Address. Everything that the President talked about is now presented to us in the House after listening to them in the Joint Sitting. I think I am still judging that given the conclusion of the President and that report, there is a serious public trust deficit for this Government. That is the challenge that I want to give the President as feedback to deal with in everything that he talked about. I am saying this because there are several items that the President referred to, but he only received two standing ovations. The first standing ovation was on the Adani Group issue and the second one was when the President talked about femicide in general and women issues in particular. That was my experience listening to the President. So it would be in order to start with my comments on those two. The Adani Group issue has been a thorn in the flesh of Kenyans to the extent that there has been voice after voice of people talking about it. I remember my party leader talking about Adani in the context of what we call the principle of Public Private Partnership (PPP). Today, because I am here, I can as well clear the air. As a country, we are spending money predominantly on two areas. One is on running Government administrative spending, and number two, is on development. Now, as a country, we find ourselves in a place where development is hitting a record low because there are no finances. That money for financing must come from somewhere. There are only three ways that we can be able to raise money for funding development projects. Number one is from taxing. However, taxes are already a burden on our people that we cannot tax any more. Number two is by borrowing. The records of borrowing that even the President talked about are bad. Even domestic borrowing is still at 55 per cent, crowding out businesses in this economy. Then what remains is PPP that we can raise money from. However, there was a problem with Adani, which I to invite the President to see. The standing ovation was not enough because there was no transparency in those transactions. Even after this cancellation by the President, still there are doubts on the details of the contracts that were in this Adani Group deal. Was there some money that was spent by the Government on due diligence that Adani was having? For instance, if you are going to do a power investment of Kshs98 billion, you can be sure that diligence will be needed. There will be involvement of lawyers, engineers and surveys. Some appraisals were supposed to be done. Were all these things transparent? Can the Government once and for all be transparent to the country on this Adani issue so that the public trust that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}