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"id": 193193,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Kaloki",
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"legal_name": "Philip Kyalo Kaloki",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for this opportunity to June 18, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1225 contribute to this Budget. First of all, I would like to thank the Minister for bringing a Budget that seems to be able to touch on good micro and macro economic policies which seem to be able to guide the country in the right perspective. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are some issues on the Budget which I would like to point out, especially on the infrastructure. As I was listening to the Minister, there are vital roads, especially the Kibwezi-Kitui-Ethiopia Road that seems to have been forgotten, or either the Ministry is still working on it. That road will help business people travelling to Mombasa. They do not have to travel all the way to Nairobi and then back to Mombasa. That region seems to have been forgotten and we need to prioritise it because the population there is high, and the economic development of the area depends on good roads and other infrastructure of the entire area, especially for connecting Ethiopia to the Port of Mombasa. That is an area we need to look at, especially in this financial year. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding the issue of water, it is an area that we should look at again. The unequal availability of that commodity has to be looked at. The areas that deserve more water seem to have been left out, especially at this particular time when we are trying to import food to this country. There are some areas, like Kibwezi, my constituency, where we have major rivers like Mzima Springs which are close to my constituency and Umanyi Springs, which are within the constituency. These springs can enable the entire Ukambani region to be irrigated. We also have Athi River. When I was listening to the Budget the Minister was silent on some of the areas, where we can have water not only for drinking but also for irrigation, so that we can help people, create employment, handle the issues of the youth through employment, and also create incomes for the people in those areas, where poverty is high. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have heard many of my colleagues talking about this. We want to make credit available. We want to make it cheap. We want to make sure that people can access money to invest and pay school fees. This is not the time to make money expensive by increasing the required capital for banks from Kshs250 million to Kshs1 billion. That is too high. The net result is to make credit expensive. In other words, interest rates and other bank charges will go up. That will be discouraging people from borrowing and investing at this time when we are trying to get the economy moving. So, we are trying to make credit available to everybody in an inexpensive way. We have to look at that, because it is discouraging and it is also going to close down some economic areas, where business people are relying on banks. The net result will be to make credit expensive, create discouragement and also cause unemployment, which we are trying to deal with. Regarding electrification, there are areas where we need electricity. If you move from Nairobi to Voi, there are many areas which have been neglected and are in total darkness. As the Minister sits down and tries to come up with which areas and districts to light up, we hope that this time there will be equality in the provision of rural electrification. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is massive unemployment among the youth in this country. We have to find a way of addressing the issue of the youth through training and attracting foreign direct investment, so as to address the issues of youth unemployment and training. We believe that we will be able to work together here as Parliamentarians, and will be able to look at that issue afresh. While we appreciate the Kshs1 million allocated to the youth for soccer to keep them busy and make them forget the reality that they have no income, we need to do a little bit more. We need factories to be established in every constituency to create employment and incomes to the youth. That problem is not only in Kibwezi but in every constituency. We need to construct factories to solve the problem of mass unemployment. Regarding the area of health, we talked about nurses. If you look at the clinics throughout this country, you will find that there are no nurses. We should debate this here and increase the 1226 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 18, 2008 number, especially in this financial year, to 3,000 because the 1,500 to be employed is too low. There are many clinics which lack nurses and that results in problems when assisting the sick throughout the country. In conclusion, I would like to look at the issue of establishing new universities in this country. I was expecting the Minister to address the issue; we could begin by establishing one university in every district to be solve the problem of lack of training for the youth. You will find that many universities are concentrated in one region, yet other regions do not even have one university. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Budget Speech."
}