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{
"id": 1532483,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1532483/?format=api",
"text_counter": 4736,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Eldas, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Adan Keynan",
"speaker": {
"id": 41,
"legal_name": "Adan Wehliye Keynan",
"slug": "adan-keynan"
},
"content": "commitments, so we are destroying the sector. The same thing applies to the county governments. I urge the leadership to put a programme together to sort out the pending bills once and for all if we truly desire meaningful economic growth and expansion of our capital base. Doing business right now is becoming a very risky venture. As we go through this, priorities should be given to the business community in the next supplementary Budget or the next Budget. Once we have a thriving business community, I can assure you that you will have thriving economic growth. This country, on the face of it, we are supposed to be the epicentre of commerce and civilisation in the East, South and Central Africa. If we compare ourselves right now with the neighbouring countries - Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia - and look at their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, why are we stagnant, and why are they growing yet we are in the same environment? It is simply because of our management style. If you open the first page of all the leading newspapers every day, it contains negative news. It is as if Kenya is coming to an end, or everyone wants to run away from it. This country is about us, and we are the leaders. I urge the owners and media practitioners to be fair to the country. We do not have a second country. This is the only country we have. Kenyans are lucky since we have never gone through military rule or civil war. We need to find out from those who have gone through such a thing. Some of us have relatives in Ethiopia and Somalia, and we have gone through hell. Can we be responsible in what we do? Even as we criticise the Government and ourselves, let us be objective. That will not destroy anybody. Under the leadership of Hon. Mbadi, this particular Department is properly managed, but there are realities. During vetting, he talked about the use or misuse of Article 223 of the Constitution. This is like when you want to marry and promise all the sweet things you know. Once you affirm that commitment, certain things change in your modus operandi . Article 223 of the Constitution will forever be there for any Government, even though under different names. That is why it is a reality right now. We know some regions have been left behind. Equalisation is a critical component under the current Constitution. The sunset period is coming, yet the benefits are almost zero. The original intention was to have the regions that were neglected over the years… Actually, we crafted it along the lines of the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II. But today, there is nothing that I can comfortably say is a product of equalisation. First, because of the many cases Governors staged, and second, because of the bureaucratic nature of our system. I urge the leadership to prioritise this, address all the lacuna s, and ensure equalisation benefits as intended. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I heard you comment that this county is about us. I come from Northern Kenya. I did not choose to be born there. If we remove northern Kenya from the map of the Republic of Kenya, we will not have a country. That map of Kenya will be very ugly. The people I represent are entitled to the same developmental needs as somebody from the Mountain. We do not have first-class or second-class citizens; we have Kenyan citizens. That means, therefore, that there must be equity and fairness in the distribution of the national resources. That is the only way we can collectively pride ourselves and say we are citizens of the Republic of Kenya, equal before God, and equal before the law so that we can all submit to the will of God and the will of the people through this Constitution because it is God that ordains everything. The framers of the current Constitution were not foolish when, in the opening Chapter, they equated representation to our sovereignty. This must also be reflected in the budget- making process. In the past, the budget-making process was a preserve of the Executive. Luckily, this morning, we passed the Budget Policy Statement, which is a precursor to the budget-making process. 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."
}