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{
"id": 238077,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238077/?format=api",
"text_counter": 223,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Githae",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Transport",
"speaker": {
"id": 159,
"legal_name": "Robinson Njeru Githae",
"slug": "robinson-githae"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this important Motion. First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank my friend, Mr. Syongo, an old Maseno High School boy. This is no doubt the kind of a Motion we expect from Maseno boys. This is a very important Motion because what is lacking at the moment is co-ordination. We have local authorities which think that hawkers are enemies and are not Kenyans. They think that hawkers must be chased away from the streets of Nairobi and yet those are the people who make this country move. We must support the small-scale traders. Every time I see the Nairobi City Council askaris chasing away hawkers from the streets of Nairobi, I feel like crying. This is because, those are Kenyans. We need to tap their potential and regulate them. I think this is what this Motion is trying to achieve. If you visit other cities, for example, Singapore or London, you will find that they close certain roads on Saturdays at specific hours to allow any person with goods to sell. This means that if you have excess suits and plates in your house, you can go to the so-called free market on that day and sell them. That is how they have regulated their hawkers. This does not mean that there are no hawkers in London or Singapore. They are there but they are regulated. In this country, the local authorities chase them away, lock them up in police cells and steal from them. This is an important Motion and I would like to ask my friend to proceed from there and come up with a Bill which will regulate hawkers. The other people that should be included in the Bill are the small-scale traders; those in the kiosks. I feel like crying every time I see the local authorities askaris demolishing kiosks. Kiosks are here to stay. They are part of the Kenyan culture. We need to regulate them. This does not mean that there are no kiosks in London. It does not mean that there are no kiosks in the City of Singapore. Kiosks are there but they are regulated. We need to learn from the Mauritius experience. That country had more kiosks than any other country in the world 20 years ago. Today, there are no kiosks in Mauritius. That country has used a very simple and innovative method. Mauritius passed a law that said that if your building is adjacent to a road, the ground floor of that building is deemed to be a commercial premise. In Mauritius, the ground floor of every building next to a road is a shop, a kiosk or a cafeteria. Within a period of five years, that country was able to sort out their kiosk problems. There are no kiosks on road reserves in Mauritius because all the people who owned kiosks are now housed in the ground floors of every building, which are deemed to be commercial premises. What do we do in Kenya? When some innovative Kenyans in an estate like, Buru Buru, convert the wall next to the road into a kiosk, the NCC askaris go there and demolish it. This is because we have been unable to regulate the small-scale traders. Instead, we declare war on them. If we regulated the kiosks, and I request my friend, in his Bill to include that aspect, we will sort out our high unemployment rate. We are sitting on a time-bomb. The unemployment rate is going up. We need to take concrete steps to October 25, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3121 eradicate unemployment. I thank the President who said that, from now henceforth, one-third of all jobs in Government departments and parastatals must be given to women. This is because the greatest portion of the unemployed are women. This will go a long way towards rectifying that anomaly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Mover of this Motion should include the brokers in his Bill. We seem to be a country of brokers. Anything you want to do, you must go through a broker. We have maize brokers who do not grow maize. We have rice brokers who do not grow rice. We have fish brokers who do not go to Lake Victoria to fish. We must do away with those brokers because they underpay the farmers and fishermen. We must find a way of doing away with the brokers. Why can the farmers not sell their maize, beans or wheat directly to the market? Why must they go through a broker? Brokers earn more than what the farmers earn and yet, the farmers till their land when it is raining and when there is sunshine. We must do away with the brokers so that our farmers can benefit. On the foreign missions as my friend, Mr. Wetangula said, we must judge them by the extent of business they bring to this country. We should remove the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) officers from our foreign missions. Kenya is not a super power. What do the NSIS officers do in our foreign missions? What do the so-called defence attaches do in our foreign missions? We have no intention of attacking any country. We need commercial attaches who will deal with trade and commerce. We should emphasise this. Our foreign missions should be told that they will be judged by the kind of business they bring into the country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of loans, we used to have the District Loans Boards. I do not know what happened to them. I have not heard of them giving out loans. They used to give out loans without security. I know of a few people in my constituency who are millionaires today and they started by borrowing loans of Kshs50,000 that were being given out by the District Loans Boards. We need to reinstate those District Loans Boards. It is the only way our people will be able to make a living. There is a very bad vice called jealousy. We seem to be a country full of jealousy. Whenever somebody works for a company and prospers, we start being jealous. We start saying that they are not paying their taxes. If a supermarket is not paying tax, the solution is not to close it. The solution is to demand that tax be paid. If a bank is not paying taxes, the solution is not to close the bank. The solution is to demand that they pay taxes. Everybody in this country must pay taxes. We need to level the playing ground as far as taxes are concerned. Everybody, including Members of Parliament, must pay taxes. There should be no special privileges. That is the direction to take. It is not only Members of Parliament who should pay taxes, but also the other constitutional offices. They also do not pay taxes. Everybody in Kenya should pay taxes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask the Mover of this Motion to come to the House with a provision dealing with the electronic tax registers. If traders were to accept to purchase and install these electronic tax registers, we would not even need donor funding. I have been told that they are fearing that if they install them then the VAT---"
}