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"id": 183147,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ngugi",
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"legal_name": "David Mwaniki Ngugi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to support this very important Motion on the Vote for the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030. This Ministry is a very important one. It is one Ministry which can make this country go in either the right direction or the wrong direction. It is charged with the national development and planning policy. It is charged with the provision of the leadership of the national economic policy management of this country. It is, therefore, a very critical Ministry. For that reason, it is important that we get the right people to run this Ministry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad that we have the right Minister, Assistant Minister and Permanent Secretary in this Ministry. I am also happy to note that in their allocations, they have allocated money for training. This is a Ministry that should value training not only for others but for its staff. Having said that, let me now discuss the estimates for this Ministry. I want at the outset to support hon. Ethuro on the calculation of the amount that should go to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). If the law says it should be 2.5 per cent, it should be a basic calculation to make. If a mistake has been made, I would urge the Minister to bring supplementary estimates so that we do not lose out on the CDF allocations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also support the view that the 3 per cent allocation paid for the Constituency Development Committees (CDCs) for administrative costs, is quite low. It ought to be increased. If you come, for example, to my constituency, Kinangop, other than having the central CDF committee, we have gone down to locational sub-committees. Even some constituencies have gone down to sub-locational sub-committees. Those are the ones that know the problems on the ground and they have to meet and bring these problems upwards. Those committees are not given any allowances. The 3 per cent is not enough to pay for administrative costs. So, I would urge this Ministry to consider increasing the amount maybe to 5 per cent. After all, even in private companies, we do not run administrative costs on 3 per cent. At least it is 5 to 12.5 per cent. So, increasing this from 3 per cent to 5 per cent would not be a big deal. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me come to the statistics used by this Ministry on the basis of the 1999 census. These statistics are completely out of date particularly in constituencies like Kinangop because all the Ministry has done is that it has projected those figures 2944 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 22, 2008 by the population growth rate. But if you take a constituency like Kinangop, factors like migration have not been factored in. In 1992, there were clashes in the Rift Valley Province and people migrated to Nyandarua and Kinangop. The same happened in 1997, 2002 and even now in 2007. They migrated and others have refused to move back. So, the figure of the population shown is not the actual one. They have not only migrated from Rift Valley Province but even from Central and Nairobi provinces. People have been coming to Nyandarua and particularly Kinangop and buying land there. So, the population that is estimated here is not the correct one but I am glad that a census will be conducted next year. I have seen an allocation for that exercise so that we can get the correct figures. As I have said, this is a very important Ministry because it is the one that holds the Vision 2030. The Vision 2030 is anchored in this Ministry. If you read it, there are various things that need to be done for us to achieve it. I will take the aspect of agriculture. There are some ten wholesale and retail markets that are supposed to be set up in the country. I would urge this Ministry not to be swayed by political influence but to think strategically where these ten wholesale markets would benefit people most. For example, it is a known secret to everybody that Kinangop and Nyandarua feed Nairobi. We grow cabbages, potatoes and carrots in plenty. So, it will be beneficial if one of the retail markets is located in Nyandarua and particularly in Kinangop, so that not only can we grow these things and sell them there, but we can also have what we call value addition. We can have factories there which can preserve this produce so that the people of Turkana do not have to be fed on maize year after year when we are growing vegetables, carrots and potatoes which could be transported there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is also important that this Ministry makes its planning all-inclusive. I know there is always a tendency for technocrats and people in management to sit together and start planning and think or assume that they know everything for everybody. This is a Ministry that I would like to urge to go out and be all inclusive. They should include Members of Parliament and the citizens for whom they are planning so that whatever the outcome is, it would have taken into account all the needs of this country. It is so important to be strategic. If this Ministry does not think strategically, we will not move as fast as we would if they were thinking strategically. For example, it beats me - I do not understand the first planners of this country - that year after year, there are floods in Budalang'i in western Kenya and drought and famine in Turkana and other parts and yet we do not plan for permanent solutions to these problems. That is why I would urge this Ministry, in its planning, to plan strategically so that we can eliminate the floods in Budalang'i and other parts of western Kenya. They should also plan what to do for the people of Turkana so that they can feed themselves. Otherwise, if they cannot completely feed themselves, then they should be removed from there, and we make that area a national park and these people be transported to places where they can feed themselves. Using money to feed people all the time is just like Recurrent Expenditure. It does not develop, motivate and uplift people. So, it is for this reason that I am saying that this Ministry must be very strategic in their thinking so that as they are holding us in the front, they can move this country in the right direction. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is the Ministry that is supposed to hold the torch for this country so as to show us the direction that we should go. Where I come from, and I have enumerated what we grow, and there are other things grown in other parts of the country--- Why is it that the people who, especially rely on agriculture in this country are poor and will remain poor? It is because there is no value addition. Year after year, they grow and sell the same crops. They are October 22, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2945 exploited by the middle men but there is no value addition. If there was value addition even for potatoes in the preservation and canning, we could export them to the Middle East and even send them to our brothers in North Eastern Province. This could fetch us a lot of money which would in turn not only improve the living standards of the people growing them but help this country develop. So, I urge that we take into account value addition."
}