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{
    "id": 241315,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/241315/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 161,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Obwocha",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Planning and National Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 356,
        "legal_name": "Henry Onyancha Obwocha",
        "slug": "henry-obwocha"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to second the Vote of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. I would like to congratulate the Minister and his staff, first, on taking up the issue of Uchumi and, manner in which they have handled the issue. This is an issue that concerns very poor Kenyans including the employees. I would like to encourage the Minister to get the Uchumi Board of Directors and all the concerned parties to take that route, so that this issue is fully resolved. Secondly, we need to talk about the issue of regional integration. The bigger we are, the better. Currently, one of the countries in the East African Community, namely, Tanzania is in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). All these countries should be members of the COMESA. As it stands now, COMESA has a population of 350 million people. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the COMESA region stands at US$150 billion. If we had access to the COMESA market, as a country, we would be moving in the right direction. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Minister has talked about the development of the small and medium enterprises. We want to encourage his Ministry to move fast on this because I believe this is the direction of eradicating poverty. Eventually when the CDF has finished the business of construction of health centres, dispensaries and schools, we should be able to transform the Fund into a revolving Fund in each constituency, so that people can borrow money and address poverty at that level. The sooner the small and medium enterprises are set up at that level, the sooner we will be addressing the issue of poverty. The Minister has just concluded with the issue of the collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks. This is a sad issue. I am sure the Minister has been articulating the issues of value addition. We want WTO to address the issue of tea and coffee. We cannot increase 2306 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 25, 2006 the prices to our farmers if this issue is not resolved. I would like to encourage the Minister to pursue this agenda to its logical conclusion. It is important for this country to address the issue of value addition, so that our farmers can get value for their crops. On the issue of export promotion, our commercial attaches are doing a good job, but we need to do more than this. We should open our trade avenues in our foreign missions. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in seconding this Vote, I would like to appeal to the Minister to look into some of these issues. We need to have a regulatory framework to protect our consumers. This is very important. The Minister has said a lot and with those few remarks, I beg to support the Motion."
}