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"id": 229680,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/229680/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"speaker": {
"id": 326,
"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "A lot is being done to improve the infrastructure. Over the weekend, I was at a place called Rioma. The residents of that area never thought they would have electricity in their homes. On Sunday, we switched on three rural electrification projects in the constituency. The people of Rioma always thought that electricity is only for towns. That place is about 30 kilometres from Kisii Town. That is something that can be seen. If I cannot call that development, then I do not know why I am in Parliament. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have got some background in economics. When you realise growth in the economy, it does not necessarily mean that every person's economy grows by that margin in the same year. Growth takes time to be realised. If I was teaching a student about the fundamentals of economics, I would say that you spur growth. Once you have done that, there are linkages. That later trickles down to the people. There are various ways of ensuring that, that growth can be fast-tracked to have the trickle down effect. Some of it is like what the Government has done by providing free primary education. By so doing, parents who would have paid fees for their children remain with that money in their pockets. In a sense, you have given them that money. That is what economics is all about. When you allocate money to the CDF and prevent chiefs, assistant chiefs, DOs and DCs from collecting people's mbuzis and chicken to sell and raise money for harambees to build classrooms, that is a trickle down effect of economic growth. That is taxpayers' money. Maybe, time has come when we should attend a workshop, so that some of those fundamentals are explained to us. Since I do not understand the law, for example, Mr. Muite can take us through the fundamentals of law, so that we do not contradict the principle of law. The same should happen to the subject of economics. I urge the Minister for Finance not to misadvise the President on the increase of CDF. If the CDF is increased today from two and half per cent to seven per cent, you will see a major revolution in the economic growth of this country. If that amount of money could be employed in Kibera, for example, in one year's time, you will not see people eating in an unhygienic environment. If we build a classroom, a laboratory or a mortuary, the people who are employed will earn money locally from that CDF. That is what economic development means. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on education, the Government must look into the issue of teachers, which my colleague has talked about. It is useless to say you are providing education when you cannot provide quality education by having an adequate number of teachers. In fact, I would propose that before they talk of free secondary school education, they first provide the free primary education with an adequate number of teachers, and from there we can move on. They could, for example, also increase the amount of bursary to secondary schools from Kshs800 million to Kshs3 billion or Kshs4 billion, in order to increase the number of beneficiaries. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a problem which the President did not address adequately, in my view, yesterday. That is the problem of unemployment. Unemployment in Kenya is rampant. We cannot address that unemployment through the Youth Enterprise Fund. The Government must develop a major policy on unemployment. If, for example, you employ from each constituency 1,000 young people at an average salary of, say, Kshs10,000 per month, you will have employed 210,000 youths in this country. That will cost this country only Kshs25 billion. That amount can be saved by reducing the number of judges you are going to employ to punish delinquents who will get into crime. There will also be linkages in economic growth because they will be able to buy sugar or even underwear. They will be able to do things and the trickle down effect will go to the people of this country. We should have a major policy, and implement it, to employ a minimum of 1,000 young people in each constituency. That way, we will address the issue of crime, poverty and March 21, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 37 corruption. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Government has tried to revive various sectors of the economy. For example, the Government has spent Kshs6 billion on sugar, Kshs6 billion on coffee and Kshs3 billion on the Kenya Meat Commission. I now understand it is now pumping Kshs800 million into the cotton industry. But there is one sector that this Government has forgotten, and it is as if it is being punished. That sector has been the mainstay of the economy of this country. That is the tea sector. It has never received a single penny from this Government or even from the previous Government. It is time for this Government to invest a minimum of Kshs5 billion to expand and improve that sector. Today, to construct a tea factory, like the one we want to do in Somboko in Marani, it will cost Kshs500 million. We are supposed to fork out a minimum of 30 per cent before the Government can look for a financier. It is as if it wants to punish us. Where we are now taking our tea at Tombe is congested, and our tea goes to waste. So, I am urging this Government to, in the next Budget, provide an amount of at least Kshs5 billion to support the tea sector, because this sector has been the mainstay of the economy of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have heard about the constitutional review. I agree there should be a review. But we should delink this review from the next elections. We must also come up with a constitution which the people of Kenya will agree with, which means we must go back to them. I do not think this Parliament has got the power to override the decision of Kenyans in a referendum. If there is an issue that was rejected in the referendum, this Parliament does not have power to bring it back. So, we should all create goodwill. We, as the political elite, must talk to our people and create goodwill in a trustworthy manner, so that we can now delink the constitutional review from the elections. If we want to address various issues which were not in the rejected constitution, for example the Political Parties Bill, we can handle them here without connecting them with a new constitution. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have heard people speak against the new districts. Those shouting loudest are the ones who benefitted from the Moi regime when he created new districts. Before those people can talk against the new districts, they must give up the districts they were given in the 1970s and 1980s by former Presidents Moi and Kenyatta. We must also have new constituencies. If the value of a vote in Kitutu Chache is to be equal to the value of a vote in Embakasi or Langata, we must create new constituencies or change the boundaries of existing constituencies. That is how we can have equal value of our votes. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}