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"speaker_name": "Mr. Omingo",
"speaker_title": "The Member for South Mugirango",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. First, I want to take this early opportunity to thank the people of South Mugirango Constituency, whom I represent, for giving me an opportunity to serve them once again. I also want to congratulate all former hon. Members of Parliament, who made it back here, and the new ones who have come. It is a great honour and responsibility that people have bestowed upon all of us, as the leadership of this country. It is upon that premise that I stand here to state that we must live honourably, as it were. In the last Parliament, I stated that some of us had occasion to actually start walking on their heads, as opposed to walking on their feet, when they got power, or when they crossed over to the Government side, even when we had suffered with them. I want to echo the views that were expressed by the previous speaker, that some of us actually forget our responsibilities as soon as we assume big offices. But when an hon. Member comes here we assume that he or she is transformed into a leader worth his or her substance, who says and does what he or she means. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me at this point congratulate His Excellency the President for having taken a gallant step to appreciate that we had a problem. I want to commend my leader, the Prime Minister-designate, for having made a great step to sacrifice victory, which was his but was somehow stolen. We compromised and said: \"We need not kill a country in pursuit of positions\". I also want to congratulate all the people who stood by us in the time of crisis, including the negotiators, who spoke very well and moved us out of the woods. Mr. Speaker, Sir, let me refer now to the issue of what we mean and say as leaders of this country. I want to refer hon. Members to a statement made by His Excellency the President in his Address. I believe that most hon. Members are below 50 years of age. If, you, as an hon. Member, cannot take the Head of State seriously, you have no business being here, because experience is the best teacher. I quote:- \"The recent crisis has caused me to reflect deeply on the half a century of my active participation in the management of public affairs. During this time, I have come to appreciate and respect the resilience of our people and our country\". It was not until the head negotiator took a bold step to exclude some negotiators, who had taken a rigid stand, in the negotiations, that reality dawned on them. I want to suggest that what has ailed us is the spirit of lack of trust and mutual respect. This is the culture of impunity, where we find someone saying: \"I am the Minister!\" So what! That Minister is paid with money from public coffers. That is where we must start. We should extend a hand of reconciliation and healing for us to move forward. I want to believe that the matter at hand is not a plate of chips. The matter at hand is extremely hot. Grandstanding that has been seen in the last two months has caused us to be where we are. I thank God that we are where we are now. I believe that nobody is going to look back into the history of Kenya. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to quote one great leader, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. In terms of changing the mindset of tribalism, he said: \"Each one of you comes from a tribe. If it 152 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 13, 2008 means we are tribalists, each one of you is a tribalist because you must come from a tribe to be Kenyan\". What does that mean? We need to embrace our tribal diversity for the common good of our nation. That is what we lack. We are fond of saying: \"My tribe is superior to the other\". Somebody said we should look out for competence. I want to differ with some of my colleagues who spoke earlier, and said that we should not worry about who is serving where, so long as they are competent. I believe we have a great economist in Turkana District. We could be having great brains from Ukambani, who can also be economists and serve in the Treasury. We do not want to see a hierarchy of only competent people from one community. Those are the injustices that took us where we are. The moment we realise this, the better for all of us. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and believe in \"my community, my cake and our community\". The culture of impunity and the winner-takes-all attitude has taken us where we are. I wish we could appreciate the potential of each one of us, and extend a hand of reconciliation. This country is great. Mr. Speaker, Sir, you did see for yourself the amount of interest generated when solving the crisis of this country. A total of 27 European Union (EU) countries and diplomats said they could not see Kenya go down the drain. We have institutions which have been looted and abused. I agree that we need to have reforms, but if we have monsters in implementing the reforms, the status quo will remain. If we have people who are dishonest and can change at will, surely we are going to have a problem. What we need is honesty, sincerity and extreme sense of visionary leadership that is going to push us to the highest height of success in this nation. Mr. Speaker, Sir, one of my colleagues talked about the issue of decongesting the City. It is true that we had factories all over this country, but as time went by we had them centralised somewhere. In the best economic sense, you do not gain mileage or you do not make more profit if you move a factory to a particular region where you are going to pay so much money transporting raw materials to that factory. There was the Kisumu Cotton Mills Limited (KICOMI); it is no longer there. We want all our cities developed; we have so many of them, Mombasa being one of them. Each region that specialises in a particular field, should be allowed to have factories in that field so as to decongest the City. If this is done, our people will not strain the resources we have in this City. Mr. Speaker, Sir, His Excellency the President commented on the issue of steady economic growth. I thank him for having done that. As the Statesman he is, I want to believe that he means well. But we have seen, for example, a Mr. Paul giving you Kshs1 with one hand and taking Kshs5 with the other hand. What am I saying? As we sit here, we believe that we have the free primary and secondary education programmes. Soon, we are going to be told we are not going to have free secondary education. The same poor farmers are the people we are taxing indiscriminately, because the Value Added Tax (VAT) on soda, for example, is the same for the billionaire and a pauper. The same peasant is supporting that education indirectly. I am not saying that everybody be paid equal salaries. Let us pay people for services they have given us, but can we make their lives affordable? You cannot stagnate the price per tonne of sugar-cane that goes to the factory for four or five years, but the output, which is the sugar, costs about ten times higher than it was five years ago. We are not being realistic. That does not make economic sense. That is why we are saying: Do not sit and celebrate; our people are poorer than they were five years ago. This is because we are telling them: \"I am going to give you something for free\", yet they are paying for it indirectly. That is why we must address the issue of poverty. As we try to rationalise our tax measures, let us try to be a bit discriminative in the sense that we also use the taxation to reduce poverty levels. I believe the Ministry of Finance, in this year's Budget, will address that issue of imbalances and relieve the poor peasant farmers of tax burdens. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the cost of fertilizer is abnormally high. We are an agricultural economy. About 80 per cent of our economy is supported by agriculture, yet the price of fertilizer is March 13, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 153 unaffordable. A farmer toils in the farm, and produces sugar-cane, which cannot even be harvested. It is a shame! We have had Anglo Leasing type of contracts that take out, at once, money equivalent to the cost of building five sugar factories in the Sugar Belt. It is a shame! Unless the issue of corruption and impunity is addressed, we shall be going around in circles. It does not matter who sits where, abnormal and impossible powers will cost this country a lot. That is why we are saying that those who are in power, when they lose it, they will realise how naked they are. The same power can be moved from where they are to another level. Therefore, let us create institutions that will make us comfortable when we are on the other side of the divide, so that we are able to serve and be served by the same institutions and laws that we are comfortable with. That is only going to come out of goodwill and focus to reform agenda. I know some people could be keeping a last card. I am not trying to anticipate debate on the Bills that are going to come here. But I believe in the spirit of nationhood. We are not going to look back at where we have come from. It has been very painful for some us. Many communities have suffered. Our people have really been killed for mistakes that were not of their making. It is high time we realised that we need each other. Mr. Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I support."
}