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"id": 197977,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. J. Kones",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Konoin",
"speaker": {
"id": 53,
"legal_name": "Julius Kipyegon Kones",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my constituents for electing me during the last General Election and to assure them that I will serve them to the best of my ability. Let me join hon. colleagues in supporting the Motion which is the President's Speech. In my view, what happened recently has exposed two key issues which we must address as a House and as a Government. One of them is the gap between the rich and the poor. This gap has widened. Although the violence was triggered by the election dispute, I still saw an element of class fighting. The marginalised and extremely poor people who are the majority have for a long time felt that their issues are not being addressed and that wealth is not distributed evenly. This point has been brought out by other hon. Members eloquently and I think it will be the main challenge of the 10th Parliament; to lay strategies and means to ensure that wealth is distributed equitably in this country. We may achieve short-term benefits, but if that problem is not addressed, 122 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 12, 2008 it will keep on recurring. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue we need to look at is to target a critical group of our population which has for a long time felt that their problems are not being addressed. That is the youth. As of now, you know that the youth form the majority of our population and they are the ones who apparently do not get employment, access to education and all other basic needs that they deserve. The success of this 10th Parliament will be measured by how much we do to address issues affecting the youth in the country. Turning to the Presidential Speech, I must say that it was reconciliatory. It set the right environment for reconciliation. We are now enjoying that environment. The President talked about a number of proposals which will be tabled in this House to make agricultural production gainful. One of this was an amendment to the Coffee Act which will allow direct sales. I want to say that apart from coffee, we also need to look into the production and marketing of tea. I know that tea production contributes at least 25 per cent of the national GDP. I come from a tea zone. As much as we know that tea brings a lot of foreign exchange to this country, tea farmers still languish in poverty. I think the problem lies in the marketing of tea. I will be proposing, when the time comes, some changes we need to introduce in the tea sector. Probably one of them would be what was proposed for the coffee sector. There is also the issue of value addition. We are losing a lot by exporting our tea in raw form. We need to prioritise value addition of our agricultural products so that we can get more from this sector. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue I wish to talk about is that of the environment. The post-election violence has had very devastating effects on our environment. I can envisage another disaster coming soon, unless we act to prevent it. I want to bring to the attention of this House the massive destruction of Mau Forest. The forest is a source of many rivers that feed into Lake Victoria and eventually flow to River Nile. If we do not take drastic measures to conserve that forest, we might not have River Nile in a few years to come. So, I want to appeal to the relevant authorities to institute the relevant measures to conserve the Mau Forest. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the Presidential Speech, there was mention of starting a National Science Foundation and a National Innovations Agency. It is true that if we have to prosper, then we should really move towards industrialization training. As it is now, Kenya is still an agricultural-based economy. But we still need to move towards an industrial-based economy. There used to be Vision 2015 for industrialization. Apparently, I do not know what happened to that vision. I hope that in the Vision 2030, which is yet to be launched, strategies are going to be put in place with very specific programmes to ensure that we move from agro-based economy to industrial-based economy. Science and technology is really going to play a key role. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our institutions of research need to be supported with funding. Apparently, most of our research institutions are under-funded. Universities and institutions like Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) require adequate funding. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue that I would like to raise - and some hon. Members have raised it before - is with regard to the disparity in salaries of public officers. Those disparities need to be addressed so that the entire work force is motivated. There has been a tendency in the past to only pay huge salaries to senior management and exclude the middle and lower cadres of staff. I wish that issue will be addressed. I also wish that professionalism is rewarded. We should go for professionals and reward them accordingly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, time and again, we have had many proposals which are very good initiatives. But one of the problems that we experience as a country is that the implementation has been very poor. I wish we could put in place a mechanism of ensuring that some of the ideas and strategies are actually implemented, so that our people can benefit from those very good ideas. So many research findings are lying idle in our universities and research March 12, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 123 institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, at the moment, there are no means of translating those research findings into practice. So, probably, there should be a mechanism of ensuring that whatever ideas are generated in such institutions are implemented or translated into real activities. That will ultimately address the problems affecting our people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}