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"id": 237246,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. M'Mukindia",
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"speaker": {
"id": 271,
"legal_name": "Kirugi Joseph Laiboni M'Mukindia",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to tell the Minister and his team that it is a shame for us to be asked to pass taxation proposals that will ultimately end in killing our own businesses. It goes totally counter to the vision that the President himself launched the other day; Vision 2030. How are we going to achieve Vision 2030 if every indigenous business, when it raises its small head, it is beaten on that head through taxation proposals passed by this House? Is the Minister telling us that his people are not intelligent enough to see through these machinations of multinationals? Are we to believe that? I do not work there on a permanent basis but how do I do know it? The technocrat there, the guy who understands statistics and the chemistry of the liquor blending business, surely knows this for a fact. There is no excuse for this House to be asked to pass tax proposals designed solely to assist the multinationals kill indigenous businesses in this country. Therefore, I totally oppose taxation measures on the liquor, cigarette and perhaps oil business designed solely to do that. I urge the Minister to re-look again at this area. This House does not entertain rumour or hearsay. However, let me say that whatever is being said is not palatable and the Minister, therefore, needs to re-look at this area very carefully. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the best way would be to, finally, come up with a proper policy so that, at least, the Minister and his officers can operate within certain clear and specific rules, so that anybody or industry that may have a question can go to a tribunal for arbitration. That way, a complainant will be listened to, not by his competitors or the Minister himself, but by an independent tribunal that can listen critically to the issues raised. I have said enough on that issue but it is actually a very serious matter. As I said, having had the privilege of serving this country as Minister for Trade and Industry, I know of many companies trying to use the Government, through the back-door, to ensure that they \"kill\" their opponents in the market. This happened before and we should not allow it to happen again. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to congratulate the Government, particularly the President, the Minister for Finance and his team, for developing and launching the Vision 2030 industrialization plan. There is no country, or individual, that can achieve anything unless there is a vision. Unless we have a target we are aiming at, we cannot achieve much. I am very happy about this development. About 12 years ago, I also had the privilege of working very hard to design the November 1, 206 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3339 Industrialization Plan for the year 2020. Our plan was just a Ministerial initiative; it was solely limited to industry. However, Vision 2030, as designed today, covers three major areas. It not only covers the economic side, which includes industry, trade, manufacturing and other services, but it also covers the social as well as the political aspects of development. The three aspects have to move hand in hand. Therefore, I wish to congratulate the Minister on this one. I want to urge hon. Members of the current Parliament, as well as those of the subsequent Parliaments, to try not to politicise the issue of Kenya's vision. I urge hon. Members to support this vision. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other day, I had the privilege of visiting Malaysia, where I also had the privilege of living in the mid-1980s. If you go to Malaysia, you will feel like crying. I know what Malaysia was like in 1985 and what it is like today. I feel like crying because I know that, that is what Kenya should look like today. The Malaysians had their vision. They implemented their vision without fail. They did so without politicising the issue. They do not say: \"Who is the head here? I must beat him to death.\" We must look at the people of Kenya, who are the ones who suffer, and who are the major beneficiaries of the Vision 2030. For that reason, we, hon. Members of this House, and those who will be in the next Parliament, need to rise above our own petty differences and ambitions and have one major ambition for this country: To ensure that every time I go back to my constituency, I do not find people with their hands stretched out, asking me to share with them the little that I have, which is not even enough to educate my own children. They do not need to do that. We do not need to keep our people poor. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we cannot be proud Members of Parliament or Cabinet Ministers or Chairmen of Parliamentary Committees when our people are poor. We are nothing if our people are nothing. We are ultimately judged by how that old mama and that child out there lives or dies. Therefore, the issue of a vision for this country is so paramount that we should all support it. We should not politicise it. We should not say that it belongs to this Government or the other Government, or it belongs to this official or that official, as happened with the Industrialization Plan for the year 2020. As an hon. Member said, a very top Member of the previous Government said that it was not in our interest to industrialize. I cannot imagine what else could have been in our interest, if not industrialization. This was said by a top Member of the Government after this country spent millions of shillings, trying to design that programme. I am very happy that I have here with me Mr. Wambora, who helped me so much in developing that vision but at the end of the day, after spending millions of Kenya shillings on it, somebody in Government then said: \"It is not in our interest to industrialize.\" Why did he say so? It was very simple: \"If we change the status of our people by empowering them\", he added, \"they will no longer worship us like God.\" Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in achieving Vision 2030, we must be prepared for fundamental changes in terms of political alignments and establishment. That is what scares us, as politicians. We want to keep our people poor and helpless, so that they can continue worshipping us as though we are gods. We are not gods. Therefore, are we prepared for the political changes that are likely to occur if a time comes when Kenyans no longer have to beg, steal and borrow from us? Ultimately, that is the question that must be answered by hon. Members of this House. It is not anybody else out there who will wreck Vision 2030. It is hon. Members of this House who can either support and sustain it or destroy it because it is our political lives that will be ultimately at stake. If we do not go with the flow, we will be left behind. We must accept the fact that Kenya is bigger than us. Therefore, Vision 2030 should be bigger than us. I wish to thank the Minister for a job well-done in terms of management of the economy. I understand that the economy might stabilize at a 5.8 per cent growth rate. Hopefully, the economic 3340 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 1, 2006 growth rate will be more than 5.8 per cent. Taking into account the fact that our population is growing at about 2.6 per cent, we can see that the effective economic growth rate is about 3.2 per cent. An effective economic growth rate of 3.2 per cent is not enough to get rid of the poverty level that this country is facing. Therefore, there is need for us to increase the economic growth rate to a much higher level than 5.8 per cent. Such growth will not be achieved by increasing the tax chargeable on property. Such action will just reduce the rate of growth. Therefore, if there are opportunities for the Minister for Finance to reduce taxes rather than increase them, that would be the way to go. Finally, I would like to point out the fact that our economy has become a relatively high cost economy. We know that our land resources are not as good as those of, for instance, Ugandan or even those of our brothers and sisters in Tanzania. How then are we going to get rid of poverty? We can only do so through manufacturing, service delivery and IT-based industries, et cetera, which means that we have to export manufactured goods, services and labour. If we price ourselves out of the export market, how will we get rid of poverty? Therefore, I challenge the Minister and his team to look into the possibilities of making our economy cheaper. The Indian and Chinese economies are low-cost economies. There is no economy which can grow by being a high-cost economy. That is not possible. We need to lift our people at the bottom first. How do we do that? We must stabilize the prices of foodstuffs and energy, so that we can stabilize wages as well. We must improve our infrastructure, which includes road transport and so on, so that, again, we can increase output. Ultimately, we need to make Kenya a low-cost economy, so that we do not destroy our export market. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have talked long enough. I wish the Minister and his team well. There are many challenges ahead, but ultimately, I believe he will achieve this. However, he has to be flexible and truly listen to hon. Members of Parliament. We are concerned about certain major issues such as monopoly policies, the total gains tax and other taxes. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}