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"id": 192948,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/192948/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Muchiri",
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"speaker": {
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"legal_name": "Clement Muchiri Wambugu",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I stand to support the Motion on the Budget delivered by the Minister for Finance. First and foremost, I would like to commend the Minister and congratulate him for giving us a Budget which was very well set out. It was in harmony with our nation's Vision 2030, based on the theme: Building a Cohesive, Equitable and a Prosperous Kenya. I would like to urge hon. Members to go through the document Vision 2030 because it has a lot of information that will guide us in the next few years of our development. Touching on the pillars that the Minister talked about regarding the basis of the Budget; the economic, social and political, I would like to say that he tried as much as he could to give us a few ideas on the economic and social fronts. Unfortunately, he fell short of advising us accordingly on how he is trying to promote our Budget through the political era. This is where we should have patched on issues like the constitutional review process which has been going on in this country for a long time. It would have been good if the Minister came up with a proper budget on how to fund the process that we will be going through in the next one year. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I understand the difficulties the Minister for Finance went through producing this Budget, especially after the difficult times that we went through at the beginning of this year. With the reversal of the economy after the post-election crisis and also dealing with the humanitarian crisis that we went through, it was difficult for him to come up with this Budget. I am bit saddened to see that he did not handle the resettling of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) issue with seriousness it deserved. This is an issue that we need to be handled carefully and with a lot of speed. There is no way our economy will grow unless members of our society are well settled and are able to produce enough food for this country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me also commend him for producing a Budget and clearly stating that he will be consistent with the financial independence strategy. I commend him for saying that he will not factor any funds which have not been committed. For any development of any country, we need to have a good infrastructure in place. That is why he talked a lot about the road structure. Unfortunately, this issue has been in this country for a long time. Every year, we hear that the Government is funding construction and maintenance of roads, but what comes out of that talk is negligible. We need to ask ourselves why is it so. It is because of the rampant corruption that we have within the roads industry. Most of the funds that are normally allocated for road construction normally ends up in pockets of corrupt contractors who never produce anything for this country. One of our roles is that of oversight. It would be important for us to be more involved in earmarking the type of roads to be tarmacked. We should also be involved in vetting contractors. We should also be involved in the monitoring and evaluation teams that will check the type of 1290 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 19, 2008 roads earmarked for development and ensure that they have been done properly. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have the Fuel Levy Fund which is normally channelled through the District Road Committees (DRCs). It is sad to note that most of these funds have been going to waste when they are left with our District Roads Engineers (DREs). They are the ones who earmark the type of roads to be maintained, but unfortunately, when we go to the ground, there is nothing happening. I request that Members of Parliament be more empowered, get involved in most of this work, so that we are able to see what the Government is doing for its citizens. The Minister talked a lot about the infrastructure in this country. However, he did not mention anything to do with the aviation industry. It is sad to note that every year we have incidences of air accidents and nothing is done to curb this trend. Every time we ask what happened, we do not get any answers. Little is being done to improve the air safety in this country. That is the sector where I belong. I am a pilot by profession. I have been a pilot for many years, so I know the problems in the aviation sector. We have had no funding for a long time. We require a lot of funding to improve our airports and install radars to monitor our airspaces. We require a lot of funding, so that we can open up more airports that can be used by pilots, especially during bad weather. We have been losing key personnel within the aviation industry because of the low salaries paid to them. I request that adequate funding be allocated to this sector, so that we are able to maintain or retain some of our best personnel. Mr. Speaker, Sir, touching on the youth, this is an issue that we all need to look at very seriously. Yes, everybody is crying about the youth in this country. They have been shortchanged. Money is given out through the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), but unfortunately, the way of running this Fund has been highly questionable. I attended a youth meeting yesterday. There is a an outcry that although the Government gives out money through the YEDF, very little of it gets to them. We need to come up with proper guidelines for the implementation of this programme. There are funds which go through the banks, but there are no proper guidelines or directions. That is why, though it is being said that they have received so much or so many millions, nothing gets to them. Even though some of it gets to them, they do not have proper skills to run some of the projects. We would like to have a policy put in place whereby before they get these funds, they go through proper training, so that they get proper skills. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also request that the Minister, while he is doing his Budget or even any alterations, that we have affirmative action for youth like that one of women. Women are being allocated a minimum of 30 per cent of whatever positions there are in Government. It would be good if this country moves forward and says that even for the youth, we require a minimum of about 40 per cent or even 50 per cent of all the chances to go the youth. Mr. Speaker, Sir, on the issue of food security, I appreciate the zero-rating on wheat flour, maize and everything else. But unfortunately, we do realize that we still have got to import a lot of food into this country to cushion the effects of the food shortages that we might be expecting later on in the year. It is very said to note that Kenya is one of the countries with a lot of rivers and trained chemical engineers who can advise us accordingly on the usage of all the rivers that we have. Unfortunately, most of our engineers end up in other countries to offer these services. Let us address this issue. Let us be a country that produces food, but not net importer of same each and every year. Mr. Speaker, Sir, on the security issue, I know we do not have enough personnel. The Ministry of State for Defence has been allocate the biggest portion of the funding in this country. I request we use our armed forces in the construction of roads in this country roads. For us to improve security in this country, I urge the Government to employ more police officers or Administration Police Officer."
}