HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 241324,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/241324/?format=api",
"text_counter": 170,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Syongo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 316,
"legal_name": "Zaddock Madiri Syong'oh",
"slug": "zaddock-syongoh"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me a chance to make my humble contribution to this Vote of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I acknowledge that there have been significant improvements in our export trade particularly with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and other African markets. This is in spite of the very high cost of doing business in this country which is an impediment to the growth of the economy and particularly industrialisation, distributive trade and transport. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to awaken the Minister not to be complacent. I know in his speech he said that he is not going to be complacent simply because of these nominal improvements which are due, essentially to the amazing commitment of the private sector to the growth of this economy. I thought the Minister would have started by saying that his Ministry is under financed. As Mr. Musila has mentioned, this Ministry is very important and it is amazing that the Minister is adequately comfortable with a Kshs1.6 billion Recurrent Expenditure compared to nearly Kshs2.3 billion for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Development provision for this Ministry is just Kshs400 million against, for example, nearly Kshs1 billion for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Having served in that Ministry for nearly 18 months, and having led nearly 16 external trade delegations, I can say with confidence in this House, that one of the challenges that this Ministry has to deal with is under-funding in terms of policy reforms, rationalisation and revitalising of its key institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the area of trade policy is crying out for rationalisation and reforms. This Ministry does not even have a legal department to undertake what is clearly a major challenge. This Ministry has got a plethora of laws affecting trade and other things. Some of them, with serious internal conflicts, competing within themselves and even conflicting with international agreements and conventions that this country has signed. Look at the institutional framework, for example, we have a Directorate of External Trade (DET) and an Export Promotion Council (EPC). If you look at their mandates, they are definitely competing with one another. As a result, we have a team of trade attaches all over the globe. In the days of Kenya's external trade, those attaches would be reporting to one particular institution. The Minister must, therefore, deal with this situation. Do they report to the department of DET in the Ministry or should that be in charge of policy, so that operational issues are dealt with by the EPC? These are issues that we cannot answer casually. They need capacity and resources to rationalise them, so that we have a clear policy on external trade. Last month, I think it was on my birthday celebration, we all saw police officers hitting Kenyan investors called hawkers. These are Kenyans trying to make a breakthrough to become the big tycoons of Kenya. However, our police officers, whom we pay with our taxes, beat them up and destroyed their investments. This is because we have no consistent and serious internal trade policies. In all fairness, how can we, with the unemployment that we have in this country, allow such a thing to happen? As we drive along our major highways, we see beautiful furniture that would sell for millions in any market globally. They are being sold by the roadside and we collect tax? This is simply because we do not have policies that will encourage the makers of such good furniture to have capacity to trade in sound and comfortable premises where they can get customers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at municipalities such as Kakamega and 2310 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 25, 2006 Kisumu, there is not a single piece of land available for industries for development of commercial properties. This is because there is no coordination between the Ministry of Trade and Industry in spite of we having passed the Investment Promotion (Amendment) Bill and, therefore, creating the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA). There is no coordination between the local authorities and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. If we promote investments and get investors, where do they plant their investments if, for example, they want to go into industry or mega trading businesses? Do they have to look for land in the villages? Whom will they negotiate with? Which is the authority that would help them if we have allocated all the industrial and commercial properties within our municipalities to the extent that there is none left? Who is ensuring that there is continuous availability of such property? I would like to challenge the Ministry of Trade and Industry to take its job seriously because I support Mr. Musila, that this is the Ministry that holds the key to the economic revitalisation of this country and the creation of employment opportunities for our people. We have another major problem. Today, our exports, especially to Europe and the Far East, still remain basic raw materials exported in bulk. Even those we have processed like tea, we still are contented exporting tea in bulk and yet, we have certain markets that are demanding, to our advantage, for example, that we complete the value addition process, so that by the time those products reach those markets they are ready to go to the supermarkets for consumption. A typical example is fish. Another example is tea. Sudan and Pakistan want complete consumer ready packed tea. However, we are quite contented. We do not have a single policy to allow investors to go that extra mile, so that we can deliver packed tea ready for the supermarkets for Sudan and Pakistan. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad the Minister talked about the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI). However, there is no connection between KIRDI and its target service consumers who are the small and micro-enterprises. The primary mandate of KIRDI should be technology transfer. They do not have any idea whatsoever about the concept of technology extension services. The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) also have beautiful ideas and well equipped laboratories which can help improve the quality of our products and the quality of the manufacturing processes of our basic raw materials, if only they could transfer the ideas to small and micro-enterprises. Nothing of that sort is going on. I mentioned earlier that in December, 2004, we passed the Investment Promotion (Amendment) Bill. As I speak now, it is now one-and-a-half years, since that Bill was passed. The institution, which holds enormous potential for our country in terms of attracting investors and spreading it out through out the country in the Invesment romotion Authority (KIPA). Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for all intent and purposes, that institution is completely dormant because they have no financial capacity. They do not have a budget at all. So, what were we creating for countries like Malaysia and Mauritius, who stole the idea of the Kenya External Trade Authority (KETA), for example, have utilised it better for themselves and we are now borrowing from them, and yet, the idea came from us. It is the same with the KIPA. The ideas have been developed here and other people are now using those ideas better than us, not only to attract direct foreigh investment and promote indigenous investment of their economies, but they are now going the extra mile of encouraging cross border investments, so that they can spread out their economic influence in the territories that surround them. I would like to challenge this Ministry, and I believe this House will support them fully in terms of revitalising this economy through their mandate, if only they can come up with a proper policy paper. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}