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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kamau",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Kandara",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir! At long last, you have seen me! My names are Mr. Maina wa Kamau, Member for Kandara Constituency, Muranga South District. First, I would like to thank the people of Kandara for giving me this chance to come and represent them in Parliament. I promise them that I will do my best. I said that I will not come and sleep in the House. I will give them my best. They will get the best out of me. So, I thank them so much wherever they are. Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki and hon. Raila for the historic moment yesterday. We all witnessed it. They did a good job because Kenyans will stop killing one another. We are going to have peace. When there is peace, the economy will improve, people will get jobs and the country will move ahead very fast. So, it was historic and very good that they sat together. At times, we were left wondering why they never sat together before. Nobody was going to kill the other. They shook their hands and the country came back to normalcy. It is great that they sat together. They are now together and the country is going to move forward. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thirdly, I would like to say pole sana to Kenyans, especially those in the Rift Valley, who lost their lives. At times you ask yourself: \"Did all those people have to die?\" Did they have to die so that we could create three positions of the prime minister and two deputies? Why did we not sit together earlier and avoid the deaths of those people? Those people voted peacefully, went back to their homes and then started dying. It was unfortunately and I would like to say pole sana to those who lost their loved ones. We hope that such kind of a thing will never happen again. I am asking the Government to speed up Agenda No.4. We all know what it is. It is crucial and we must ensure that it is discussed in this Parliament so that the people can live in peace. I also would like to request the Government to ensure that all the IDPs are taken back to where they belong. It is so unfortunate! You will find that somebody who was living in Burnt Forest in Rift Valley is in Murang'a. They are displaced! We try to comfort and give them some food. But it is unfortunate because they say they have nothing there. They do not know who their neighbours are. They would like to be taken back to where they belong. Some of them are like my relatives. They have lived in a place called Kapsowar and Kuresoi all their lives. The other day, I went there for a funeral. We had the Kalenjins there. They looked like very good people and very friendly! Then, after some time, I heard they had started killing each other. We had lunch. We slaughtered a goat but when the elections came, one neighbour who lived on the left hand side of the house came at night with a machete with all his family and killed those people. We lost three families in one night. It is very unfortunate! Let me say that I am blaming the politicians. I am a politician and I know what a politician is capable of doing. When we started talking, how come the killings stopped? I will not hesitate to say that politicians are the ones to blame! At least, 95 per cent! If they went back there and talked to those people, they would have stopped killing one another and those innocent lives would not have been lost. 256 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 19, 2008 Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is one thing I would like to say about the Speech by the President. Something has been giving us a problem whenever we go to the villages. Those people greet you and the second question they ask you is: \" Sasa mheshimiwa, you went to Parliament, where are the jobs?\" You find young boys and girls hanging around the shops. Those people have gone to school and passed their exams. But they have no jobs. They tell you: \"Now that you are in Parliament, make sure that we get jobs.\" But, where are these jobs? I remember some time in 1969, when I was a young boy. The late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta introduced a policy in this country which was called the \"Tripartite Agreement\". For those who were there at that time--- I do not know what it entailed, but it was called a Tripartite Agreement where all employers--- I do not know whether they were forced to employ, at least, 10 per cent, but they did it! There were so many people who were in the streets who got jobs. My cousin got a job and was posted to Kisii in 1969. I am wondering! We have companies in this country that are making billions of shillings. Why are they making all those billions of shillings? It is because our labour is very cheap, the environment is very conducive and we have security. I think we should force them to take a bit of those billions, at least Kshs2 billion--- I do not want to mention any company, but you all know them. They are posting billions of shillings in profits and yet, our youths have no jobs. Why can the Government not ask them or enter into an agreement where a company that, say, is employing 2,000 people, takes, at least, another 20! That even includes the Government. But what you find is that the companies are sacking our people. Is it proper? It is very unfortunate! I am thinking of bringing a Motion to this Parliament where we can force those companies to employ, at least, 10 or 20 per cent or our youths. They will not go under. But our people will get jobs. Let us not talk about the Youth Enterprise Fund! We will give them Youth Development Fund and yet, those people have never been employed. They have no experience of doing business. They will just misuse that money. It will not help them at all. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of tourism, we have countries in Europe like Turkey, Spain and France. Tourists who flock a country like France have nothing to see. It is made up of rocks. Yet, the total number of tourists flocking into that country is over 80 million. Why can we not do the same thing in our country? Why can we not do the same for our country here? Should we not expand our airports to accommodate many tourists, so as to make money? I would urge those who are mandated with the job of marketing tourism in this country to pull up their socks. They should be more aggressive, if they want us to make a lot of money. A country like Turkey has nothing to show for her tourism and yet, she attracts more tourists than us. The same applies to Paris and other parts of the world. We have wildlife and wonderful beaches, but we cannot attract more tourists. We can make a lot of money if we properly market our tourism industry. We do not have to borrow money from foreigners with strings attached. My dear countrymen, I would wish we look into that area and see what we can do for our people. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to talk about the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). I would like to commend the gentleman who came up with this idea. We all know what the CDF is doing in our rural areas. It is creating employment. People are developing because of it. People can chose what project they want undertaken. It is doing wonders. If we can manage our CDF properly, we can be assured of being re-elected to Parliament so many times. We can literally live in Parliament if we manage our CDF properly. However, if we do not manage our CDF properly, it will be unfortunate for us because we will not see the entrance of this Parliament again. Otherwise, that idea of the CDF is very important. People in the rural areas are very happy about it. Those Members of Parliament who represent rural areas like me know what wonders CDF is doing for our people there. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, again on agriculture, we have a crop called coffee. Some of us were educated using money made from coffee. We have talked about value adding. We just pick March 19, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 257 our coffee, export it to Europe and then buy it at ten times the price we sold it for. We need to do something about value-addition. We can make much more. At the same time, I would like to encourage the farmers to continue planting coffee. We should introduce something called Guaranteed Minimum Returns (GMR) that will encourage and give hope to our farmers to continue planting coffee. It is actually our livelihood. Some of us would not have gone to school had it not been for proceeds from coffee. It is now sad that the coffee industry is dead. It is as dead as a dodo. We hope the Government will do something about it. The Government should wake up. It should encourage farmers to continue planting coffee. We shall make money and create employment opportunities. If we achieve that, everything will be good for us because things will calm down and people will stop complaining. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not wish to talk much about this issue, but I would like to support this Motion on the Presidential Address. May God Bless you."
}