HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 224869,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/224869/?format=api",
"text_counter": 243,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Weya",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 304,
"legal_name": "Sammy Arthur Weya",
"slug": "sammy-weya"
},
"content": "I would like to also advise the Minister for Finance to copy the examples provided by the Minister for Energy and the Minister for Roads and Public Works, who inform Members of Parliament what their Ministries are doing in specific constituencies. As a Member of Parliament, I find it very difficult to understand why a young Minister like him cannot establish a website to inform Members of Parliament, and the nation at large, for instance, with regard to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), how much money is going to each constituency and what projects are being financed, so that we can monitor the monies that go to our constituencies. As a Member of Parliament, I am not even aware of how much the Ministry of Finance is disbursing to my constituency of Alego Usonga, and I think many other constituencies have a similar problem. So, I would like to advise the Minister to set up a website and indicate what money is going to which constituency, and to finance which projects, so that even communities in the constituencies can monitor the expenditure of the CDF money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I can see that the Ministry of Finance has included some money for teachers' salaries in these Supplementary Estimates. During the run up to the general elections in 2002, we promised them, as NARC, that we would increase their salaries immediately we got into Government. Although it has taken time, now we are giving them this increase in the last year of this Parliament. Their package should have been spread over several years, so that it does not bite hugely into the finances of one Budget. There is also a complaint from teachers, who retired prior to the payment of the money that is going to be paid that they will not benefit. The Minister should be aware of that complaint, because they have already gone home. I do not think this Government is going to consider them for payment because it has put the money in these Supplementary Estimates. I can also see in these Supplementary Estimates some money allocated for cotton development. That is good but I went to South Africa last year and learned that when a government, really, wants to support farmers, supplying them with cotton seeds alone is not good enough. You need to introduce them to modern methods of agriculture. I do not believe that Kenyan farmers in the 21st Century should still be using jembes to plough. That is wrong because of the amount of time, energy and resources that they use, as opposed to those used by their 860 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 24, 2007 counterparts all over the world, who use modern technology. This country needs to graduate from a Third World country mentality and start using what other countries are using, so that we can catch up with them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to also talk about revenue collection. I was recently in my constituency, and councillors were complaining bitterly that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is asking them to pay, in arrears, their taxes from when they started earning their allowances. You know how much money councillors earn. They earn peanuts. This is an issue which the Ministry of Finance needs to look into before it starts taxing councillors. The little money that councillors in the rural areas earn forces them to adopt uncouth ways of raising additional resources for themselves, which is wrong. They start handling community resources which should be monitored and used properly. You cannot expect somebody to give out money when he does not have that money to give out. So, this has created a situation where some councillors have become very corrupt. Eventually, they do not implement local authorities' projects properly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like also to talk about roads. In last year's Budget, roads in my Siaya District were allocated Kshs4 million. But that money has been reduced by Kshs2 million. So, we got only Kshs2 million in the whole of Siaya District for roads. My neighbouring constituency which is Bondo, has had its Budget increased from Kshs240 million to Kshs300 million because Mr. Tuju, who is a Government Minister, comes from that district. That is an increase of Kshs60 million. That money was earmarked for Ndori- Wimbi Road because he is a Cabinet Minister. We need to come out of that. We should not take projects only where the Ministers come from. When they realise that you are an ordinary Member of Parliament, they do not support you. Yet, there are typical roads that pass through my constituency. Since Independence, Alego-Usonga Constituency has only seven kilometres of tarmacked road. So, you can imagine that some money that was supposed to be in last year's Budget was not there. But it was in the first Budget that was read by Mr. Mwiraria. It was also in the second Budget that was read by Mr. Kimunya. A sum of Kshs450 million was allocated to the constituency road from Rangala-Siaya-Bondo and Siaya-Usonga to connect us to Sio Port dam where fishing is the main industry. That road was given nothing by the Minister for Finance in last year's Budget. From then, henceforth, we have never seen that money in the Budget. We need to find out whether the Government has Ministers who are level-headed. I would like to say that Mr. Murungi has become level-headed. If we get Ministers who are level-headed, this country would grow and attain the required development across the board. In the distribution of water resources, Siaya District got Kshs5 million while Nyeri District got Kshs450 million. What criteria was used there? What is the basis for allocating resources? Do you have a Cabinet Minister for development to go to your area? We should get away from the archaic ways of the KANU regime. In the past, a Minister would call another Minister and tell him: \"Give me one school and I will give you one hospital! Give me one road and I will give you a water project! Give me ten employees and I will give you 20!\" That is how some of these Ministers are still operating, especially those who were Ministers during the KANU regime. They sit in their offices calling other Government Ministries and asking for favours. They say: \"Give me one parastatal head and I will give you one in my Ministry!\" Ministries have now become a place for trading by Ministers of this Government. That is very embarrassing. We are a modern society. In a modern society, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is very key. We cannot expect our young children in our constituencies to compete with their counterparts in United States of America (USA), Japan and Taiwan, if we do not extend ICT to our rural areas. It is critical that we do so. We want our children to use computers right from nursery schools. That way, they can do research at that level. We should do April 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 861 that, even if it means doing it at the constituency or locational level. That will modernise our student's way of thinking. How do you expect our students to finish Form IV without ICT knowledge and yet, in USA, children are taught to use computers at the nursery level. Without ICT, our children cannot compete with their counterparts in the first world for jobs, business and other things, even in development and growth. That will not happen until we are able to look at ourselves as Kenyans. We should not just look at what Uganda, Tanzania and other countries around us are doing. We should look at what First World countries are doing, so that we can enable this country to move faster. We hear about economic growth in this country. Economic growth is a good thing. But we should look at the sectors that are growing. Kenyans are using huge sums of money in telecommunications. But you find that some of those resources are now benefiting other companies such as the Vodafone, which invested in that sector earlier. Vodafone is pulling huge profits back to its country. Kenya is not benefiting from those proceeds. We are only benefitting from the taxes which such companies remit to our Government. We need to make sure that we have our own mobile companies. That way, Kenyan communities can form companies and invest in that sector. We need to grow as a society. The Minister for Finance should look at how to empower our people in financial institutions. That way, we can empower our youth and women. I can see that we are planning to give loans to our youth. But the idea of giving loans to those who do not have security is a serious issue. The Government says it will channel the money from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund through the banks. Banks are institutions that we are trying to avoid. We need to set up a revolving fund to assist those who do not have access to capital. Some of our women cannot even get Kshs1,000 to start a business of selling vegetables. So, we need to look at how we will fund those groups. What structures are we going to put in place? But we should not use banks! Telling somebody to go to a bank is just like telling him to get an ordinary loan. So, let us look into those critical issues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our country's economy is agricultural based. We should not just look at coffee and tea. We can find out the prices of those two crops. We should explore other crops like pyrethrum, which the Government has not considered. We also have a crop like cotton, which the Government only gives seeds. We need to have what we call a minimum return. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}