HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 217323,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/217323/?format=api",
"text_counter": 82,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Olweny",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 122,
"legal_name": "Patrick Ayiecho Olweny",
"slug": "patrick-olweny"
},
"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to give my comments on the Budget Speech that was presented to us last week. It is a Budget which, to me, has a lot of misleading information. It was a wonderful Speech, but with a lot of misleading information. The Minister said that he would give a little more money for roads. It is true that our roads are in a pathetic condition. The Minister said that we had realised some development over the last four-and-a-half years. However, we cannot talk about economic improvement if our roads are unusable, particularly in some parts of this country. They might have repaired a few roads in different parts of this country, but the majority of the roads in this country are in a pathetic situation. This makes the cost of vehicle maintenance to be very high. It also makes the cost of transportation to be very high. With regard to road safety, it is the condition of roads in this country that causes accidents and not the issue of used spare parts. After all, those spare parts are usable and the vehicles fitted with them are running. It is the condition of our roads, the pot-holed roads, that causes poor safety. It is a good a idea that the Minister said that he will give a little more money for roads. On the issue of education, the Free Primary Education (FPE) Programme which was initiated by this Government is a good idea. It is true that we have more pupils in schools. However, the standards of education have gone down, seriously. We have few teachers,and yet the number of children going to schools is very high. Why take a bunch of children to school and have no teachers to teach them? At the end of the day, they become rowdy, indisciplined and get no education. The result of the national examinations that came out this year reflected a reduction in performance. Let us hope that the teachers who will be recruited this year, as the Minister promised, will be distributed across the districts and constituencies. Some areas in this country lack teachers. In my constituency, we do not have enough teachers. Some schools do not have more than five teachers, yet they have up to eight classes. How do you expect five teachers to handle eight classes? Quite a number of schools in our district have that problem. Let us hope that more teachers will be recruited and attention will be given to those areas which have serious needs for teachers. We hope that the teachers will not be sent to other places which already have enough teachers. It is very unfair the way things are being distributed in this country today. Children and people living with disabilities have received very little attention in this country. The FPE Programme is designed for normal people. What about the children living with disabilities? The provision of the FPE is very expensive. It is just as expensive as secondary education. These are the people who need special attention and whose problems need to be addressed and yet we make their lives very expensive when it comes to education. The Government needs to address those problems so that disadvantaged people can get support when it comes to education. The Minister said that he would give a little more money to the agricultural sector. This sector is the key to our development and it is where our food comes from. However, for several years to date, we have not been having an Extension Department. That department collapsed. It does not work. We do not have extension officers. The few that are around do not travel around the country to visit farmers and advise them on what they should do so as to improve their production. The officers do not have means of transport. There is no way agriculture will develop if services 1906 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 20, 2007 have collapsed. That needs to be addressed. I hope that the little money that will be allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture will address the issues of extension services. The Minister made things worse for the sugar-cane farmers by saying that he would remove the Sugar Development Levy (SDL) on imported industrial sugar. That will make us less competitive with other sugar producers across the world. This levy was meant to help us or make us a little bit more competitive with the rest of the world and develop our sugar industry. I do not understand what is in the mind of the Minister for Finance. The Ministers for Finance have always targeted the sugar industry in this country. They do not seem to like it. The Government of this country does not seem to have a soft spot for the sugar sector. I do not understand what is going on between the sugar industry and the Ministry of Finance. There are some officers in the Ministry of Finance who think that the sugar industry should fizzle out. I oppose that part of the Minister's Speech. I do not like the idea of the Minister of removing SDL on imported industrial sugar. Instead, we want the VAT on sugar to be zero-rated. If the Minister can zero-rate VAT on pyrethrum products, then he should also zero-rate VAT on sugar because it is food. Pyrethrum is a drug which we do not eat. After all, it is used for killing insects. Why do we have VAT on sugar while we zero-rate VAT on pyrethrum products? It is because pyrethrum is grown by other people and not by those who come from around the lake region. It is very unfortunate that this Government is trying to frustrate certain parts of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, sugarcane farmers, as of today, are making losses when it comes to harvesting. When their sugarcane is harvested, they have to bribe loaders so that their sugarcane is loaded and taken to the factory. They are making losses when it comes to the inputs, which are very expensive. They are making losses because of the poor state of roads and many other ways. Sugarcane farmers in this country are some of the poorest paid farmers when it comes to pricing because after all, the price of sugarcane, as compared to the total price of inputs, is terrible. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister said here that poverty has reduced in Nyanza. I think that was the joke of the year. Go to Nyanza today, the unemployment rate is high. It has actually sky rocketed. More youth are just hanging by the roadside and in the market centres because they are not employed. Poverty reduction would be reflected in the number of people who have secured employment. If you go to Nyanza, the farmers are out of business because of increased input prices, and the Minister says here that poverty reduction has been realized in Nyanza. Where did they get that data? Let the Minister not feed us with data that is wrong. Let him not give us misleading data. Where did they get that data if young people are unemployed? The idea or aim is to ensure that they reduce the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) money that will be allocated to some parts of this country. I think that is what the Minister wants to do. He made a claim here that poverty has been reduced in Nyanza so that we get less CDF money. That is wrong. Let the Minister not have that intention in his mind. With those few remarks, I beg to oppose the Motion because the Speech was misleading."
}