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{
    "id": 240943,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/240943/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 137,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Khamasi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 300,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Lyula Khamasi",
        "slug": "daniel-khamasi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe that when we set up the Budget Office, we will give this Ministry enough funds to turn around the economy of this country. I believe it is a very key Ministry. We need to look after it well in terms of funding so that we can see the results. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have a few things that I will ask the Minister to inform this House when he will be replying. What has happened to bilateral trade agreements that have been signed over a period of time? What has happened to these bilateral trade agreements? Where is the follow up on these agreements or is it a ritual whereby these agreements are just filed and put on shelves? I do not think we need agreements which have got no meaning since they cannot be followed up. 2390 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 26, 2006 Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Exim Bank of India availed about US$20 million for small and medium enterprises. I wonder whether this has been taken up since this is an area we need to develop and improve in terms of trade. When the Minister is replying, we would like to know what has gone on in that regard. We have yet to see the small books on district allocations and yet we are going into the Committee of the Whole House at some stage today. I do not know whether the Minister thinks this Ministry is too small that he is not able to produce these books for us to be able to know the amount of money that the Joint Loans Board have been allocated. This is critical and when we go into the Committee of the Whole House, we shall demand that the Minister lays on the Table of the House these books. He should, in fact, distribute them for us to be able to know what he has done in terms of loan allocations to districts. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the recent statistics have shown that 70 per cent of this country comprises of the youth and most of them are unemployed. I am not sure that by 2020 we shall be industrialised because this is the sector that will absorb a substantial percentage of this population. The Government should be working very seriously on a special fund which should be able to provide funding for this group of the population so that we can engage them. They can carry out trading activities and in so doing they may reverse the situation where the economic growth of 5.8 per cent is not felt on the ground. It is fairly somewhere above there where the ordinary Kenyans, youth and women do not feel that actually there is economic growth. If we had a special fund where we could get money for these people, it would make quite a substantial difference. It is necessary that this Ministry should help the Government to expand the economic growth of this country. The youth and women should be beneficiaries of these funds. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for the benefit of not repeating what my colleagues have said, there are trade attaches in this Ministry. How are they appointed? Who do we look at before we forward their names to various countries in the world? It is necessary that if we have to improve our trade with other countries we must recruit the best officers that we have. It should not be a matter of appeasing certain individuals who have failed in certain fields and sending them abroad in these missions. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is necessary that we should recruit the best so that we can improve trade between our country and others. With those few comments that I have made, I support this Motion."
}