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"id": 193411,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/193411/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Baiya",
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"speaker": {
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"legal_name": "Peter Njoroge Baiya",
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"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the Budget Speech. I wish first to appreciate the bold suggestion brought out by the Minister and his team in this Budget. This is about restoring economic growth and achieving the targets set out within the Vision 2030. We have seen the various bold suggestions across various themes that the Minister has come forward with. We are sure that if these kind of efforts are sustained, the country will certainly recover from where it was. But there are certain aspects of the proposals that possibly would warrant my comments like the proposal regarding education. The Minister actually proposed to allocate Kshs1.5 billion towards recruitment of additional teachers for both primary and secondary schools. That is a good gesture. The one challenge here is that within the Ministry of education, we have seen the Government is actually allocating huge resources both for teachers, students and other additional staff. But there is a clear 1262 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 18, 2008 gap within the Ministry's staff meant for supervising the teaching fraternity and so on. The Minister has not said anything about this matter. It is, therefore, not very proper that he is allocating huge resources, but the supervisory and inspection functions are weak. This means that those resources could very well go to waste. The other aspect to which I want to contribute relates to the commitment by the Minister to reduce and combat poverty. One of the measures he has suggested relates to the promotion of affordable housing particularly for the urban poor. It is contained in paragraph 65. The Minister has proposed a strategy of the Government coming up with 200,000 low cost housing units annually. That is a good measure, if it is pursued with the seriousness that it deserves. But the Minister has gone ahead to allocate Kshs350 million towards this objective. The question that ones asks is: How much will each unit really cost? If I work it out arithmetically for one unit, it comes to about Kshs 1,750 per unit. What kind of units would that kind of money really put up? So, there is clear disparity between what the Minister proposes to achieve and the allocated resources. They are completely inadequate, thus raising the question of how serious the Minister is about ensuring that the poor of this country are assured of affordable housing. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the other issue on which I would wish to contribute relates to the Minister's proposal about coming up with an effort to ensure that farmers in this country have farm inputs at affordable prices. One of the measures the Minister has proposed relates to the issue of the Government consulting with the Governments of Uganda and Tanzania towards setting up a regional fertiliser factory that would ensure long-term sustainable supplies. For me, that is a very good suggestion. The only challenge is that the Minister has not actually evaluated that suggestion. The need for fertiliser in this country is very huge and substantial. If, indeed, we have raw materials for the manufacture of fertiliser in Tanzania or Uganda, we should, therefore, go ahead with the establishment of that kind of a factory. After all, we are talking about industrialisation, the need to create employment and the other benefits that come with industrialisation. A small country like Mauritius, which is just across the India Ocean, with a population of about 1.5 million people can afford to come up with its own factory to actually manufacturer fertilisers that are tailor-made towards specific crops. Their main cash crop is basically sugar-cane. In Kenya, the amount of fertilisers we use and which we import is substantial. We use fertilisers for tea, maize and other crops that we grow. If we had our own factory, we will actually be manufacturing fertilisers for specific crops. We will also address the different varieties of soils in our country with different nutrients and deficiencies. Our local based fertiliser factory will be able to factor in all that and therefore, ensure our farmers achieve higher productivity. If a country like Mauritius can afford to do that, is it not actually a big shame that Kenya with a population of over 30 million people cannot really do it? So, whether our neighbouring countries, Tanzania or Uganda, will buy the idea or not, Kenya is by far viable and in a position to go ahead and build the factory. That will also go a long way towards alleviating the exploitation our farmers go through while we are procuring fertilisers from overseas. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would also wish to contribute on the question of governance which the Minister spoke about. The Budget Speech made proposals for accelerating and deepening governance. The Minister also brought in targets that need to be achieved. They are related to further strengthening governance and anti-corruption institutions, enhancing capacity to prosecute, faster disposal of cases, facilitation of transparency and public access to information. Number four, deepening privatisation programmes. The problem with this approach by the Minister is that he is talking about the targets but falls short of telling the strategies through which he will achieve these objectives. That way, this Parliament will be able to evaluate that suggestion and see how well suited or designed the suggestion is. Otherwise, overall, I would wish to also say clearly that some of the assumptions in the June 18, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1263 Budget are more challenging than the Minister has actually put them. The Minister stated he anticipates that US economy to deteriorate. He, however, expects that there will be sustained growth particularly from China and India. The main point I am making is that the Budget falls short of fully anticipating the impact of foreign inflation. With regard to the escalating oil prices, we are now experience high inflation rates in this country. It is certain that even the performance of China and India economies is bound to be affected by the under-performance of the United States (US) economy. The growth of the Chinese economy has basically also been sustained through exports to the US. If there is dismal performance in the US economy, it will affect the economy of China. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}