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{
"id": 197310,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/197310/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kenneth",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Gatanga",
"speaker": {
"id": 167,
"legal_name": "Peter Kenneth",
"slug": "peter-kenneth"
},
"content": "I am only fighting for my democratic right as per the Standing Orders. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who came together to discuss about Kenya. Whether they came from outside led by the team of Eminent Persons or inside--- We had Members of Parliament and Kenyans who prayed for a peaceful Kenya. There are Kenyans out there who wished Kenya well. As I said, this is our country and we have no other country to go to. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, issues have been raised about equity. Perhaps, one of the best ways to identify and see that such equity is really achieved through the review of the Constitution; that Constitutional office holders are appointed and vetted by this very House. That way, certain cases of bias, as has been alleged in the past, are then concluded and finished here. That will ensure that Parliament has some authority over the constitutional office holders and other appointments that are made. As such, Parliament will have no excuse or reason to say that they were done purely from ethnic considerations. I think it is important that the supremacy of this House, especially as we review the Constitution in one year's time, is looked into, so that there is some supremacy. We can have a safety measure here and Parliament, as an institution, can have that authority. Secondly, as a way of ensuring equitable distribution of resources, I would like to appeal to my colleagues that, probably, it is time we thought and looked at the provision that establishes the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), and increase it from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent, so that we can have all that money going to the grassroots. We have seen what has happened with the 2.5 per cent. I think if we amended the CDF Act and really made it be owned by the constituencies--- If we increased it from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent, it will have a lot of impact in the local constituencies. We can even then try to close-up and say: \"We want to grow this country together and, therefore, we want to look at security issues, water and health provision, infrastructure and education for every constituency from a CDF aspect.\" If the CDF was 10 per cent of the gross March 19, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 287 revenues and was tied to five basic problems of this country, we can grow the country together. The people in the grassroots will see that there are state resources coming back. Today, the problem is that sometimes that 2.5 per cent is too tiny. When you spread it too thin, although there are effects, they are not enough to be felt at the grassroots. Therefore, it is time we thought of growing the CDF. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of economic growth, I know we have the Vision 2030. This Vision is anchored on agriculture, manufacturing and tourism. But we saw what happened with the issue of tourism, which gets easily affected. Agriculture also gets easily affected. We must move towards manufacturing, in whichever way that we should think it is fit. We must encourage industries to come to this country and support the existing industries. We must give incentives to the industries in this country, so that they can expand and create employment opportunities for our youth. If we gave the industries at the Industrial Area the incentives of security, water, electricity and infrastructure, and ask them to operate 24 hours, with the current employment levels of 500,000, they would employ another 500,000 people at night. Therefore, we would have reduced the rate of unemployment. As we move forward, as a House, we must look at these things. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}