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"id": 192993,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Chanzu",
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"legal_name": "Yusuf Kifuma Chanzu",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for a well presented Budget. I think hon. Members who were here saw the Minister making his presentation very well. He was calm and it flowed very well. Generally, I would say that it was a good Budget. However, we have to keep on emphasising and re- emphasising what we have said here before. We are an agricultural country. Agriculture is the mainstay of our economy. So, I am still saying that agriculture should be accorded more in terms of funding. 1300 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 19, 2008 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we still have got a lot to be done when it comes to agriculture, particularly issues like extension services. We even need to diversify in some of the areas. The other day when the Minister for Agriculture was saying that they want to spend about Kshs10 billion to import maize, I was wondering about the impact the money would make if we were to spend it, or only part of it, locally. We have the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. If we spend part of that money to irrigate our farmlands, I am sure, we will be able to produce more food and sustain production of the same rather than spend a lot of money importing food and come next year, we still talk about the same problem. So, the agricultural sector should be accorded more. I want to thank the Government for creating the Ministry of Industrialization. It is a very good idea. I know that this has been done before, but in a different fashion. The Jua Kali sheds in Muthurwa, Nairobi, and elsewhere, for instance, were created out of this kind of innovation. It is getting to a time when we should take this seriously. I was hoping that the Minister would put a lot more money in the Ministry of Industrialization. We talk about taxation measures, every time repeating ourselves and changing terminologies. We are taxing the same people whose incomes are not rising. In fact, our people's incomes have been eroded. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, considering the current rate of inflation and comparing what people were earning ten years ago with what they are earning now, I am sure we are counting in terms of negative figures. So, we are talking about taxing the same people. I would like a situation where we will put in a lot of innovation. If we could put in more funds and more skills towards promoting the Jua Kali sheds I see in Muthurwa and Shauri Moyo markets, I am sure, we can produce items which we can even sell outside those places. When some of us went to school, we used boxes which were made of paper coated with some plastics. Before, there were wooden boxes. Later on, there were boxes which were made of a kind of paper and covered with some kind of plastics. Nowadays, you cannot use those boxes in schools. Now, we are having to use the steel boxes from the Jua Kali sheds at Shauri Moyo Market. That is what I would like to encourage. We should spend more on such initiatives. We have many students going to schools like Lenana High School and Alliance High School within this locality, and many more going to secondary schools all over the country. We have got many secondary schools. If the students were to use such steel boxes, there will be a lot of creation of employment. So, I would like to stress that we put more emphasis on industrialization. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I know that money has been allocated for infrastructure. We have talked about roads and electricity. Every year, we are here, as Members of Parliament. The public listens to us every year, coming up with Budgets and talking about the same things - that, we have allocated money to this and that sector. However, follow up and implementation is the problem. So, I would like us to support the idea of providing more funds for the infrastructure, like it has been done for roads and electricity, and so on. We must have in place institutions which can make sure that whatever money is allocated is put to proper use. Also, on infrastructure, I have been looking at the Likoni Ferry. Recently, I visited one of our neighbouring countries. We have got a problem of being brain washed. Every time, we want to relate things to those in the western world. We want to talk about what we saw in the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK), but there is also a lot happening in the neighbourhood. One of the countries I visited recently, is being crossed by the Nile. They have built five crossings, across the Nile, which is very wide. When I looked at those crossings, I thought they were wider than what we would do at the Likoni channel. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we like talking so much. We keep on talking here; we talk big. We talk about the country being a heaven in this region. Other countries are developing much faster. I would expect us to do something about the Likoni Ferry. Talking of tourism, we want, once tourists get to the coastal area, to be free to move from the north coast to the south June 19, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1301 coast. Many people would want to see our country, but sometimes you take a lot of time to cross to the south coast in a ferry. So, I would like the Government to put more money into that, so that we can have the ferry crossing. There is something else the Minister talked about, which was interesting. Many people were happy about it, but it has not gone down to the people. That is zero-rating of bread and rice. That was okay, but there have been a lot of issues that this was done belatedly and so it will not trickle down to the people. I know, maybe, in the long-term, if he persists on it, it will work. However, there is the aspect of the commodities that he did not zero-rate. Where I come from - Western Province, Vihiga - in December, a bag of maize was costing between Kshs1,200 and Kshs1,400. Today, it costs Kshs2,500. I expected the Minister to be very pragmatic and talk about this because, maize, beans, et cetera, are the main foodstuffs which our people feed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also expect a lot of innovation in whatever we are doing. As I said, we cannot just keep on going round about taxation, trying to get more taxes from the same person. A number of years back, this Government, together with the so-called \"development partners\", spent money on oil exploration in the northern part of the country. I would have liked the Minister to also take this into account because, if Sudan is now able to produce her own oil, we should also be able to, at least, conclude the exploration. If there is no oil deposits, we should know. The other thing the Minister talked about is tourism, as a foreign exchange earner. He gave some incentives like removing duty from the gym equipment. I did not understand what he meant by that. I do not think removing duty or tax on gym equipment at, say, Serena Hotel, is adding a lot of value. Maybe, there is a way in which he will implement this policy, but I am just thinking that, as we allocated money for infrastructure, we should have been specific to what we were allocating so as to improve our tourism sector, particularly the funds that we were allocating within the tourism areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there was one aspect which was impressive, which I noticed. For a long time, the Recurrent Expenditure has been so high in this country, but I notice that the Minister has made an effort to reduce it. I commend him for that because, if you are not realising development in any economy, then you are not progressing. If you are going to be spending money on salaries, and you are not developing anything, it means you are not investing. I am happy that, that gap is being reduced. Another thing I want to talk about is on the devolved fund. I do not think we have been given enough. We have been given only 2.5 per cent. We have seen in the constituencies that---"
}