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"id": 208534,
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Maathai",
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"legal_name": "Wangari Muta Maathai",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I want to thank Mr. Sungu for moving this Motion. I agree that it is very important. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the two words \"trade practices\" drew my attention to this Motion. I think there is an Act of Parliament that must have been inspired by the desire of a few companies and individuals to be given monopoly in a country where competition was very low. They wanted to have monopoly and price control and, therefore, do trade according to practices that favour them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as a developing country in the region called Africa, in the eyes of the world, it is a very strange region because Africa is a continent that is deeply endowed with resources. There is no resource in the world that Africa does not have. We have minerals like diamonds and gold. We have water that can produce hydro-electric power. We have forests that supply timber to many companies in the world. We have human resources, close to 700 million of them. Yet, Africa continues to be one of the poorest! Indeed, it is the poorest region in the world! The question on the lips of everybody is: Why is it that Africa, with all her resources, has not been able to raise her people from the state of poverty? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is because of trade practices that have been going on between our region and other parts of the world; starting with slavery as a trade practice, where the people of Africa were actually turned into a commodity and traded with for centuries. Now, why did that happen? That is because the African leadership that was there at that time did not have the August 15, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3191 vision to protect its people from being turned into a trade commodity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, then this region became colonised! One piece after another, we were colonised. It is partly because the leadership of that time allowed trade practices that made us very vulnerable. Sometimes, people literally allowed their neighbours to be invaded and conquered, believing that they were safer, only for them to eventually become colonised and exploited. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am trying to say that, in every situation, through the history of this region, it is the leadership that has betrayed its people. In the course of history, it is always the leadership that protects its people. In every situation, there are always those who lead and those who follow their leaders. Now, if those who lead do not lead their people properly, sooner or later, they become victims. I think that in Africa, even without thinking about Kenya--- When you come to our country, it is the same! There is something inherently wrong in the way we have practised our leadership and allowed trade practices to exploit our resources and leave us poor! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, during the post-colonial period, we inherited many laws that were put in place by people who did not have the indigenous people of this country as their prime interest. They had their own interests. They laid down laws and trade practices that actually did not favour the indigenous people of this country. That is why, when we even introduced crops that should have made us rich such as coffee, tea, sugar-cane and all those other crops that, during the colonial services, we were not allowed to plant--- When we planted them, we were not allowed to trade directly. We are in our 40th year of Independence and we are still struggling to make our people benefit from coffee, tea, sugar-cane and cotton as if we are in a foreign country. Yet, there are laws that allow trade practices that do not favour our people. What kind of leaders do we subscribe to when we allow, whether it is ourselves or others, to practise trade in a way that does not favour our people? In any other country all over the world, it is the local people who are prioritised by the laws. The leaders know that whatever trade practices are made, practised or allowed, they must favour their people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, right now as I speak, I am thinking of the people in my own constituency of Tetu; people who should be extremely rich because they have coffee, tea, milk and even macadamia nuts. But, as I speak, those people are still struggling! It is not that coffee, tea or whatever other crop they have, is not producing the same products that it produced during the colonial times, but the trade practices that we have allowed in this country continue to dis-favour those people and leave them poor, when a few people who are enjoying the protection of such laws in this Act continue to enrich themselves with the sweat of those ordinary people."
}