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"id": 192951,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/192951/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ngugi",
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"legal_name": "David Mwaniki Ngugi",
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me an opportunity to contribute to the Budget Speech, which was read by the Minister for Finance a few days ago. Before I do so, let me clear one issue. My name is David Ngugi, Member of Parliament for Kinangop. Yesterday, and the day before, my colleagues came to me and told me that there was a Question that I was supposed to ask, but I failed to turn up. It was not me, but my neighbour from Lari Constituency. Mr. Speaker, Sir, may I start by congratulating my neighbour, the Minister for Finance, for delivering a Budget in very difficult circumstances. This Budget tried to touch on every sector. It touched on transport, housing, water, health and virtually on every sector. It also touched on problems that we need to address, as a country, in order to move forward. The problems were very well enumerated, and I do not need to quote them. But the Minister failed to give proper solutions to those problems. For example, we are facing a global food crisis, the rising fuel prices and the economies of the Western countries are going through bad time. So, in our Budget we should have taken these problems into account. Fuel is a driver of our economy and all economies everywhere, but there is not much that the Minister said on fuel other than the generation of wind energy and hydro-electric energy. Year in, year out, this country has had oil being explored but we have not had the results. In view of the very high oil prices, we expected the Minister to come up with some budgetary measures for the exploration of oil and development of our economy. We use a lot of fuel, particularly here in Nairobi, that does not contribute to economic development. In the traffic jams that we experience in the city, we use more fuel than we would use if there were no traffic jams, or if there were by- passes that have been talked about in the last four Budgets. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me address the issue of agriculture. The Minister tried to put forward a few measures, which will address the problems of the agricultural sector. But as long as we continue being producers of raw produce, this country will never move forward and our farmers will continue to be poor. I suggest that we should have elaborate value addition measures. In my constituency, Kinangop, we produce a lot of cabbages, potatoes and carrots. If these were dried, canned and exported, then we could get more money than when we just produce them and sell them to brokers, who exploit the farmers. Mr. Speaker, Sir, regarding the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), it has been proved that this is one area in which this country can make a difference. Unfortunately, even for the money meant for the CDF for the year 2007/2008, only a quarter of it has been released, and the rest is being held by the Treasury. In some constituencies, like in mine, where we bought some graders, since January those graders have been lying idle instead of being put to some economic use. Another issue that I felt that the Minister did not address properly is that of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Earlier, the Government had said that it required about Kshs30 billion for it to address that issue, but the Minister provided only about Kshs400 million. In view of the theme of national cohesiveness, I would have expected the Minister for Finance to have provided not only the Kshs30 billion for IDPs but more money to promote national cohesiveness. It can be used on seminars or teaching Kenyans that land is not the only source of income, and even on how to utilise that land better. Mr. Speaker, Sir, another issue that was disappointing was that there was no allocation at all for women. I do not know whether the Minister for Finance felt that there is still Kshs700 million for the Women Enterprise Development Fund, which is still unapplied. That money is unapplied because the conditions that have been put for women to access that money are impossible. Even if they met those conditions, they cannot put that money to productive use, because a group of 30 or 50 women is given a loan of Kshs150 or Kshs200, which works out to 1292 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 19, 2008 about Kshs4 per person. There is no project that you can undertake with that money and develop yourself. Another thing that I feel will continue to hinder the development of this country, unless we face it squarely, is corruption. When the NARC Government came to power in 2003, corruption was one of the areas that was identified to be the main monster facing this country. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, we forgot that we ought to address corruption, yet it is a big hindrance to whatever we want to do in this country. For example in the area of roads, the Minister allocated Kshs65 billion, but I can almost guess that out of that amount, only Kshs35 billion will go to road construction, and even so the quality of the roads constructed will be so poor because of corruption. Instead of a road lasting for five to ten years, it will only last for one or two years and start developing potholes, thus requiring more money for repairs."
}