HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1545157,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1545157/?format=api",
"text_counter": 207,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Onyonka",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13592,
"legal_name": "Onyonka Richard Momoima",
"slug": "onyonka-richard-momoima"
},
"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I would like to comment on another issue. I have watched what is happening in our country and I have seen this for quite a long time. The reason is I have been around for a while. Unless we change the way we behave, change the strategies that we use and change the social-political economic behaviour as leadership, we are taking our country in the wrong direction. Why do I say so? We have a country and you expect what runs the economy of this country is the private sector. The private sector - the small businesses, the big businesses, the mix between MDGs and when you put all these groups together, that is the engine that is supposed to drive our economy. However, right now in Kenya, our economy is being driven by the national Government. That is why everybody wants business in Government and do deals in Government. That is why in every transaction you see, everybody wants to own a piece of land owned by the Government. Every single transaction we are conducting today is actually about the Government. How I plead with my colleagues here that we change that to the point where we agree that the private sector is going to be the driver and the engine that is going to change the country to the direction it is going, so that we have an economy that grows, the cake becomes bigger, we are responsible for how we use our donor funds, all the money that we borrow and how we use the taxes that we collect from Kenyans. Madam Temporary Speaker, my honest observation and feeling is that we are failing on all those gaps. Therefore, I would like to say that let us follow up on what works and make sure that our GDP ratio to debt and to borrowing should come down to 50-50 per cent. Let us also make sure that when we borrow funds, we borrow externally because money is cheaper at the international money market. We can go 70-30 per cent as we have always been. I heard Sen. (Dr.) Oburu Odinga mention, and it is true because of the institutional memory, he was in the National Treasury. There was a time when the Kenyan Government borrowed any money, 30 percent of that money would be grants and we paid 70 percent. The loans were concessional, long-term and were very soft. That is how you change and develop various sectors. Finally, there has been this argument historically, which started about 10 years ago, that all the money we get, whether we borrow it internationally or domestically, we make sure that we use it for mega-projects; where you want to spend Kshs500 billion or Kshs150 billion. Kenya just needs us to fix the health sector, the education sector and make sure that we fix the basic roads, as well as make sure that there is an ease to do business; make sure that the Kenyan public appreciates that our education is running well and that we are funding university students well. Why can we not give free education to our poor people in this country? Why, Madam Temporary Speaker? Kibaki did it. He was using Kshs72 billion to take primary, secondary and university students for free education. Right now, the Ministry of Education is given Kshs640 billion and we cannot give our children free education and yet, we borrow this money. We are spending Kshs640 billion on the education sector, and yet, we are not able to give free education to our students. You only get to hear all these things about who prints book or where the money is going. 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."
}