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"id": 197973,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/197973/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ng'ongo",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Gwassi",
"speaker": {
"id": 110,
"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
"slug": "john-mbadi"
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"content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. My names are John Mbadi Ng'ongo, Member of Parliament for Gwassi. For those who have not heard of Gwassi, it is one of the two constituencies in Suba District. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me to make a few comments in support of the Presidential Speech. I would like to point out that I was impressed by the reconciliatory Speech of the President. But allow me before I go into the details of that Speech not to forget to thank my constituents. This is because they elected me as their Member of Parliament at this age. I think, I must thank my constituents most sincerely for showing confidence in me and for believing that I can represent them effectively in the Tenth Parliament. I hope that I will not disappoint them. Let me now go straight to where I left; that is, thanking the President for giving a reconciliatory speech to this House. I must say that my confidence was renewed. I came to this House with a lot of hope. When I conceived the idea of contesting, I had a lot of hope. I believed that I would be productive in this House. But when the events that took place in December last year started, I really had a second thought, whether I was really going to the right profession after leaving my beloved profession which is accountancy. Right now, I must say that, I think God has a purpose that I must bring some change. I agree with hon. Mbarire, who is relatively youthful as I am. I just want to appeal to the hon. Members, who are young like me, to take up the challenge. I know that these people who have been in politics for a long time have passed through a lot of stages. They have a lot of differences which somehow look irreconcilable. We can help them as young people to bridge the gap that they think is difficult to bridge. I say this because in 1991, when I was an undergraduate student, the people I admired most as my role models included, hon. Raila, hon. Murungi and hon. Muite. I would also like to mention hon. James Orengo and the current Speaker. I admired them as agents of change in this country. They were working together, but somehow right now, they are on different sides. What is diving them is very simple. It is just misunderstanding about power. They do not believe they can work together. But as young people, I am sure we can show our seniors that they can still work together. I also want to mention something about the displaced people and the National Humanitarian Assistance Fund amounting to Kshs1 billion that the President talked about. I know that many of us think that only those areas which were highlighted in the Press suffered a lot of violence. There are other places and constituencies where we have internally displaced people. I must tell you that my constituency is a multi-ethnic one. Some people think that it is entirely a Luo constituency, it is not. Actually, it is not even a Suba Constituency. We have Luhyas there. We also have a large population of Kisiis. We also have Subas and Luos. So, there were people who were March 12, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 119 displaced. I hope that my people will also be considered during the disbursement of these funds to help them resettle in their places. Some people lost their shelter as it happened in other places in the Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces. I wanted to mention something which is very dear to my heart, and that is the infrastructure. Since Gwassi Constituency was born, there is no single Member of Parliament who has ever made it for a second term. The main reason for this is purely poor road network. Our roads are impassable whenever it rains. I hope the Government will consider this issue. That way, at my age, I would go for the next elections when I am 41 years old. Please do not render me jobless. Nobody will be willing to employ someone who has been in Parliament. I hope the Government will consider improving the road network in Gwassi and Suba by extension. We are actually some of the few districts without even an inch of tarmac road and all-weather roads. Our roads are only dry weather roads. So, if the road network in my constituency is given the first priority, I will make it to the next Parliament. I would not even campaign. So, I request the Government to help me win my second term. I am appealing to the Government to consider that. My constituency is really marginalised. It is the only constituency which has no electricity. I am sure very few constituencies can compared to Gwassi Constituency which has no electricity. Even one metre of electric wire is not there. So, I am appealing that this time round---- I think Gwassi people elected a young person because they realised that these things require some youthful strength so that I can carry the load. I know they had confidence that I will carry the load and get them connected with electricity. They said that I was young and I have enough strength to serve them. I know that I would not be able to carry the load, but through persuasion and proper policy framework, we can have better networks. I want to move very quickly and say that I do not know where the ring-road from Port Victoria to all the way to Muhuru Bay went. The Ugandan and Tanzanian sides are already done. I wonder why the Kenyan side was not done. The former Minister for Roads and Public Works, hon. Raila, had a very good plan, which if implemented, would benefit the people who border Lake Victoria. We would not have had these problems. We would not have been talking about poor infrastructure. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to mention something about devolution. The President talked about reconciling the three party manifestos: the PNU manifesto, the ODM manifesto and the ODM(K) manifesto. The ODM and, to a large extent, the ODM-K manifestos talk about devolution of both power and resources. I am sure we are currently engaged in devolution of power. However, I hope that the team that has been appointed to harmonise these three manifestos will look at the devolution of resources, so that we have equitable development of regions. If you look at what the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) has done in this country- -- I know some people have misgivings, but by and large, if you look at the kind of development we have witnessed in the last five years, courtesy of the CDF, you will agree with me that we require more devolution of resources. I hope that the team that has been charged with a very important assignment will look for a way of marrying these manifestos together so as to devolve more resources to our regions or constituencies. I have in mind an idea like increasing the percentage to the CDF from the current 2.5 per cent to a minimum of 10 per cent, if that can be sustained. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President talked about economic growth. I must thank the NARC Government for having turned around the economy to a growth rate of almost 7 per cent. However, even though we are now complaining about the chaos that brought the problems that we have with the economy at the moment, we need to look into our institutions. I want to talk about the Capital Markets Authority (CMA). That two brokerage firms have been struggling for a few months, those are M/s Nyaga and Associates and Thuo and Associates, sends a very bad signal from the stock market. I think the CMA needs to come out and speak to Kenyans. It 120 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 12, 2008 needs to give Kenyans the reassurance that their investments are still safe. I talk to many investors and I have seen a lot of pessimism. There is a lot of reluctance on the part of Kenyans to invest in the stock market. They are not sure whether the regulator is really doing its work. I think the CMA needs to come out and reassure Kenyans. It should do a thorough audit of all the brokerage firms that we have and give us a report. Make the report public, because these are things that just depend on perception. Once the economy is affected by perception, you cannot recover. Finally, I would like to talk about land title deeds. There are areas where we own tracts of land without title deeds. I hope the Ministry of Lands will speed up the issuance of title deeds in certain areas, especially in Nyanza Province. Nyanza Province is really hard hit. You cannot even access any credit facility despite owning huge tracts of land. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me an opportunity to make may maiden speech."
}