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"id": 192997,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/192997/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Konchella",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Kilgoris",
"speaker": {
"id": 322,
"legal_name": "Gideon Sitelu Konchella",
"slug": "gideon-konchella"
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"content": " Thank you Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity. I want to contribute and thank hon. Members for having worked for the last six months without me. I am now here to join you to make sure that this Parliament does what Kenyans want. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me first of all congratulate Mr. Speaker. I have been out there since his election; he has been doing a great job. The people of Kenya are very proud of his performance. We, as a Parliament, should support him in every way. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me also congratulate hon. Members of Parliament who have been elected. I know there was a \"tsunami\" that sent my colleagues out of here. As I look 1302 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 19, 2008 around, I cannot see most of them. I believe the new ones will make friends soon and we will know each other, so that we work for this nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to thank the people of Kilgoris for re- electing me. It has been a tough fight. In deed, doing two elections in six months is quiet a difficult job. However, because of God's grace, we have been able to do that and we are here again to serve our people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to go back to the issue of what I saw. We know that after the last general election this country was on fire. We watched in horror when people, who had lived together for 40 years, killed each other and destroyed the economy and nation that they had built together. It was a shame! It is something that, as a people, we must fight and ensure does not happen again. In particular, I saw what this House did; it rushed through certain laws to try and sort out the situation by having what is now the Grand Coalition Government. Unfortunately, Members of Parliament did not realise that they had lost a very good opportunity to sort out what they are now trying to do, creating an Opposition. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the democratic world today, there is no country, even if we are talking about a Grand Coalition Government, that has no oversight responsibility, or that is not able to control what the Executive is doing. The Executive is empowered by this Parliament to spend the money which we are talking about here. But unless there is a watchdog--- The Parliament should make sure that they account for what they are doing. We will always be talking about corruption. This corruption we are talking about--- surely there must be an end to corruption. There must be a way to reduce corruption. We are not talking about reducing corruption here; we are just talking about corruption being there. People are just saying that it is likely to be there. So, as a Parliament, what are we doing to ensure that whatever is happening will not happen again? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the more corruption takes place in our nation, the more poverty is going to be there. That is the more youths will be running around, looking for us for jobs. Jobs will not be created because of corruption. So, it is something to watch more seriously than we think. It is something that we must sit and address, as a Parliament. This can be done through committees, or even through discussions outside Parliament. We need to see how we can address these issues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is more serious when you go down to the country side. You see unemployment and how many people are crying for lack of jobs. This is a manifestation of what we saw when Kenya was burning. I saw what ethnicity can do to divide a nation. I saw how neighbours can destroy each other. Let us, as a Parliament, now head to the review of the Constitution and, indeed, come out with a law that is going to protect the people of Kenya for the next 100 or so years. Going back to what we have seen will not help. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, talking about the Budget, I want to congratulate the Minister for Finance. I know that for the last three or four years he has tried to bring a Budget aimed at the growth of this economy. In deed, the pillars of Vision 2030 were put there to try and address poverty and achieve economic development for this country. Unfortunately, we have been set back by the election process, and the problems that destroyed the economy. However, there are a number of issues that must be--- Budgeting should address very fundamental issues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of these issues is the people of Kenya. Will our people be any better out of this Budget we are talking about? If our people are going to be as poor as they were last year, then we are wasting our time here. The Budget must address the poverty among these people. Our economy will only grow if we are all spending, because we have something to spend, but not when we beg for food or shelter. It must address education, because unless we are able to educate our people and achieve high literacy levels our country, as a nation, June 19, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1303 we will not move forward. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Budget must also create jobs. I just want to look at one scenario; we privatised the Kenya Railways to Rift Valley Railways, but we do not see much. We destroy the roads we spend money to built. Kshs60 billion is a lot of money, but we destroy our roads within a year or two, because we are not able to transport our bulky goods by rail. If we want our youths to be employed, we, as a Parliament, this nation and Government should aim at high expenditure. We should not have 40 per cent for development and 60 per cent for Recurrent Expenditure. We should aim at a higher expenditure so as to create jobs. We aim at that which will give us economic advantage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, here I am talking about the markets for this country. The whole world is moving to the East. Kenya is the biggest gateway to Africa. We should aim at investment in the supply of goods and services to the markets within Africa. We are the gateway. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the process of budgeting should address the issue. Why can we not have a high-speed rail wagons from here to Congo River? We will supply the whole of West Africa, and all our youths will be employed. We can have another high-speed rail line from Malindi all the way to Southern Sudan and Ethiopia! This should be the direction of our investments if we want to alleviate poverty in this country and move forward, as a nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are a number of issues which could be addressed by the Budget, particularly since Parliament is the guardian of the investments of this nation. When you talk about Kshs1 billion as capital for someone to start a bank, surely you are joking. I think 70 per cent of our banking sector is in the hands of foreigners. How long are they going to enjoy the labour of our people through investments in foreign banks? We should allow Kenyans to move from where they are and get about 50 per cent ownership of the banking sector. That way, we will create and maintain most of the wealth in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe this House should say \"no\" to the Minister on that particular item of the Budget, and this should also apply to microfinance institutions. People in rural areas should also be able to invest in this sector in order to develop themselves. So, why make it so difficult for them to do so? It is this Parliament that should protect them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, these are some of the things that we need to address. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), I know we are developing a lot of call centres in the country. We are trying to bring two ICT centres in Nairobi. What for? We are attracting a lot of idle youths, youths who have no jobs, to Nairobi, just to come and learn! Why can the Minister not create an ICT infrastructure within the provincial level, so that youths can be trained at the provincial level and then go back to their districts? We are awaiting the fibre optic cable by 2010. We need to address training of ICT within the districts and secondary schools levels. So, let us not bring a system of ICT to Nairobi because we will be creating more infrastructural problems. Let us make sure that it is at the provincial level, so that we can develop it at the district level. We shall employ more people. That is because the future of employment of our youths is ICT. So, let us address that issue at the district and constituency level as opposed to Nairobi. That is because we are just going to flood Nairobi with a lot of idle youths. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are a number of problems which I would like to mention, particularly in my constituency. But because of time--- We have no water in Kilgoris Town. All the children are going to the rivers to fetch water because the Ministry of Water and Irrigation or the department that deals with water is not able to pay the bills for electricity. I will bring a Question to ask the Minister to authorise--- With those few remarks, I beg to support the Motion."
}