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"id": 217354,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Muturi",
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"legal_name": "Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to say a few words about the Budget Speech that was delivered by the Minister for Finance on Thursday, 14th June, 2007. As usual, it is not my business to tell them when they have done well. It is my business to tell them where I think they have not done well in the hope that if they have ears, they will hear and improve. We do not hate them! Looking through the Budget Speech, you realise that the Minister has fallen into this habit of making populist statements in the hope that he will attract certain regions to behave in a certain way. Why do I say this? At page 14 of the Budget Speech, the Minister talks about making Mombasa a free port but completely says nothing about the mechanisms of how that is going to be June 20, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1913 achieved. The Minister, of course, I would expect is well aware that this House passed a Motion that was moved by the young man from Mvita to the effect that this House should urge the Government to make the Port of Mombasa a free port. I think the Minister was merely trying to respond to that and in his usual style of populism, just like he had said last year that he was going to tax hon. Members' allowances, he decided to include this in his Speech. It is very clear that if he had any intentions, he would have said how this is going to be done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, he says, among other things, that part of the funds he expects to raise to finance his deficit is from proceeds of privatisation and he has indicated the public entities to be privatised. I have interest in one; Safaricom. The Minister has said that they are going to privatise Safaricom. It would be the height of hypocrisy for us to proceed with the privatisation of Safaricom if we are not going to be told who owns the 10 per cent that was irregularly given or ceded from Telkom Kenya to Vodafone Plc of the UK, who in turn gave it to a shadowy company called Mobitelea Ventures Limited, allegedly, a local company which was advising Vodafone Plc on local business ventures and protocols, yet that company was self- registered and resident in Guernsey Island. We have looked through the minutes of the Board of Directors of Telkom and Safaricom, and there is nowhere that the Board ever ceded or gave authority to cede the 10 per cent. That 10 per cent which reduced the Government's shareholding in Safaricom from 70 per cent to 60 per cent, purportedly, was an irregular transaction. It is worth a lot of money. Since it was an irregular transaction, the Minister should, first of all, recover that and then offer it for sale to the public of Kenya. He should not purport to reduce further from 60 per cent to 50 per cent without, first of all, reclaiming what was given to a shadowy company whose directors or shareholders are also registered a bit more vaguely, again, in some other funny island called Antigua Island. Yet this company was meant to be a local company advising Vodafone Plc of the UK on local business protocols. This company came into the picture in 2000 yet the shareholders agreement had been signed on 29th January, 1999. So, there was nothing that Mobitelea was coming to advise. Everything had been sealed and the equity ratios had been agreed. So, even as the Minister says that he is going to raise part of the deficit from the proceeds of privatisation, we need to get it right. We cannot keep losing what belongs, rightfully, to the public of Kenya when it is held by some other shadowy companies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of sugar growing, I am a bit worried that while we are well aware that the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) window on importation of duty-free sugar is coming to an end in January or February, 2008, this Budget Speech says nothing about improving the competitiveness of our local sugar factories. How will they compete with imported duty-free sugar from COMESA into Kenya? If you look at what the Minister says about revamping agriculture, in as much as he appreciates that it contributes so much to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, there is nothing that goes specifically to cane growers. I do not come from a sugarcane growing area, but I do not have to come from there to really see the danger of ignoring such an important sector. Over six million people of this Republic are dependent on sugar-cane growing. It is not fair that what we are doing instead is to remove the Sugar Development Levy (SDL) from imported brown sugar on the pretext that the makers of sweets and such like things are relocating from Kenya into Tanzania and Uganda. The SDL is not merely a levy that was put there. It helps the Kenya Sugar Board (KSB) to fund the research into better yielding sugar and also in funding sugar factories in order to make them more efficient and more competitive. So, if you remove this levy, what are you telling sugar development in this country? It is just going to waste! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also take issue with the fact that it is acknowledged that we have a low absorption capacity. There is nothing in this Budget that attempts to address this issue. Last week, the Minister for Roads and Public Works, himself, acknowledged here that our 1914 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 20, 2007 own local contractors do not seem to have capacity. We should come up with ways of ensuring that our locals, particularly the contractors--- Since it is the area of Development Expenditure where we seem to have a lot of problems because we have a low absorption capacity--- We vote in money for development but we very well know that by March, 2008, in the Supplementary Budget, we will be told that we are actually removing this money from Development Expenditure into Recurrent Expenditure. We know that the time left is not enough for that money to be spent. We need to come up with ways of ensuring that we improve on our absorption capacity. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the question of mergers of banks and raising the minimum equity. We must approach this thing very carefully. It may well be that the banks of the Minister's friends have made so much money that they are now very liquid. They can afford the Kshs1 billion. However, if we follow this route, it means that most of our indigenous entrepreneurs, who have interest in banking, are being wiped out. Why are we doing this? When his predecessor was there, he actually lowered the minimum amount of money required to establish banks. Now, we are being told that people must merge. Those are issues that must be addressed and approached with a lot of sobriety and care. They could very well end up marginalising our own people. It will not be fair that we represent them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue that I think the Minister needs to approach with care is duty on imported second-hand motor vehicles parts. I think many people in this country rely on second-hand motor vehicle parts. I think the Minister should not use the fact that some of his opponents in the village are in that business to try and impose taxes which are going to affect the entire country. We should let him go and do his little battle in the village and let the rest of hard working Kenyans enjoy the benefits that come with the importation of second-hand motor vehicle parts, without unnecessarily imposing punitive duties and levies. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}