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{
    "id": 1567803,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1567803/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 285,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "It is until we are able to come up with sound policies to grow our tourism numbers to a point that the communities that live around the tourism circuits, those in the coastal areas and places that have wildlife sanctuaries, are able to see significant number of tourists to a point that business bounces back to levels that actually have never been seen before. Not even to what was there previously. I do not think that was accurate, given the fact that we know we are now actually upwards of two million and above. If we are able to grow that even by 50 percent to make it three million, then believe you me, the game drivers, the women that operate the tuck shops next to the wildlife sanctuaries and so on and so forth, those that work in the hospitality sector, those that provide food to those entities, will appreciate. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is now our coffee and tea of the 80s and the 90s; the largest export of citizens that go out of the country to work in the different parts of the world to do either formal or some even informal jobs and send back to the country lots of resources, and are earning now more than our horticulture. Back in the days, that was our premium possession as a country. Now we appreciate that with interventions such as the Kazi Majuu Programme and the promotion of the Ministry of the Diaspora we have Kenyans sending in excess of a billion dollars back to this economy. People are building, setting up businesses and doing this or the other. If we are able to come up with policies that will ensure that we will grow that by an additional 100 percent, so that we make it USD two billion instead of one, that is real growth that will be realized, because that is money that has come back to this economy. If it is on exports of the horticulture, we need ways and policies to ensure we earn more for our farmers. Be it in the beef sector, tea, coffee we need to make sure that we have progressively made policies that ensure that our farmers earn better than what they already earn. Instead of tea returning back to us upwards of a billion dollars only, we need to make it return two to three billion dollars. It is possible, because that is the intervention that we see. Therefore, that is just a lay basis of what this Business Laws Amendment Bill seeks to do. It is an amendment of various provisions of different statutes and laws in our country to make Kenya globally competitive and ensure that we conform to the global standards. The so-called Asian tigers, for example, that have been able to grow progressively and faster than us over the last couple of decades, yet maybe at the time of independence we were at the same level, is because they were intentional. They made certain sacrifices to ensure they became competitive. That is what we seek. This is in response to what the business community is telling us. I must appreciate, because there are not many laws that we pass in this House that are actually from the private sector; the people that can help us grow the economy in this country. We just imagine that the Government needs to do this. Many of the laws that we pass here are about regulating this and the other, making sure that somebody does not do this and the other thing. That is not what will take us to the next level. What will make us competitive as a country is if we realize what we can do to make our private sector players competitive and compete with other players from different parts of the world and earn for this country. 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."
}