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"id": 241331,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/241331/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving this opportunity to support this Motion and congratulate the Minister. I also support those who have said that this Ministry needs much more than Kshs1.6 billion. The point has been made very strongly that we need to support groups in the rural areas. I have in mind the Jua Kali people, women groups, youth groups and the many unemployed university graduates who could do with some support. Those are some of the small things that should have been done. One wonders why we have taken so much time, especially with supporting the Jua Kali sector. There are plots set aside for development of the Jua Kali sector. But, in some cases, there are conflicts because some people have grabbed them. We have not sat with university graduates to advise them on how they can come together and use their skills to organise themselves into consulting organisations and sell their own resource or knowledge learnt in universities in form of trading skills. It is going to be very difficult to support disadvantaged groups, who are the majority in this country. If we do very little and open our markets to every Tom, Dick and Harry - unscrupulous business people, tax evaders and those who sell substandard goods - we will be making it very difficult for indigenous Kenyans to survive. That is because they will face competition from those who take advantage of the desperate condition of most Kenyans to bring in everything. They also take advantage of every connection they have in the Government, or people working in strategic positions, to evade paying taxes. That makes it very difficult for those who do not have those connections to compete. That is very demoralising to potential traders. We will not be doing enough if we are not going to give the small-scale trader a chance to do business, even with the Government. We should award them tenders for procurement of goods and services. We cannot do that effectively, if we do not deal with the greedy people. Those are the people who want to do virtually everything. They may be well-established in business, but they want to pick every other small opportunity, and we let that to happen. Sometimes, it is not even for them. They do it for their wives and children. It is high time affirmative action was taken to decide who should have access to small Government business opportunities. Until we do that, we should not argue that we are opening up trade frontiers to everybody. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should think of ways of limiting the greedy people from nyakuaring virtually every business opportunity. There are ways of supporting local manufacturers in terms of imports and exports. The Government can come in more strongly and ensure that local manufacturers are given more support. The point about affirmative action cannot be over-emphasized. I am talking about affirmative action on African Kenyans. If you go to South Africa, they have a programme whereby businesses are opened to South Africans. They have been doing that for the last five years. There are programmes of preparing Africans to join well- established corporations; businesses that allow Africans to come in are given incentives by the Government at a certain stage. I think it is unfortunate that we have never thought about that. But, also, in terms of the people who are employed in companies, we should insist on certain percentages. Diversification must not just target indigenous Africans. It should go beyond Africans of certain communities because there are certain communities that are more established in business. If we want to have businesses that are acceptable to majority of Kenyans, we should have an affirmative action targeting those who are marginalised; from a socio-economic point of view. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is also important for us to think about unique opportunities that we have not exploited. I have in mind, for example, sporting opportunities. We have done one or two marathons. But being a country that is known for its great sporting prowess, there is much more we can do in terms of organising high altitude training facilities for foreigners July 25, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2317 who would like to come and train in Kenya. That does not have to be in Eldoret alone. It could be done in other places. We should also try to make sporting events much more commercial. That could be done at all levels, including schools, universities and so on. We could make our football clubs and other sporting programmes much more professional than they are. Of course, people must have incomes and employment opportunities from sports. But the environment must be there, especially for those who would like to come from foreign countries and take advantage of our training opportunities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are other areas that we need to consider seriously. Livestock breeding areas should consider the leather tanning industry. The leather tanning industries in most industrialised countries have gone down because they are very expensive to maintain and are labour- intensive. We could exploit the opportunities in those countries. But, again, the Government must come in, in terms of helping those who want to do it. Prof. Oniang'o has made a point about science, technology, research and development. But in terms of research and development, it is not just a question of getting universities to do it. We should spend much more money in research and development. That takes me to the Nyayo Pioneer Car Project that some people made fun of. Actually, although he did not have many good ideas, that was not a bad one. But it needed to be supported. I think we should be prepared to support that kind of industry to ensure that, even if it takes that long to realise the benefits, we should be prepared, as a country, to put in more money as long as it is guided by professionals who know where we are headed to. Again, in terms of research and development, we need to look at the budget of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. How much of that is going to employ people? If you go to Finland, about 70 per cent of the budget of the Ministry of Trade is allocated to research and development. The idea is to research on opportunities that are likely to create employment, as opposed to employing people. Numbers, sometimes, do not make a difference in terms of long-term planning. But, again, we cannot claim to support our indigenous workers if we cannot put enough bricks to block those who are exploiting them. We should seriously deal with those who are pretending to be trading in this country, while they are exploiting our workers. They are not only exploiting them, but also bringing in foreigners even for tasks that do not require the kind of people we see coming to work in this country. If we are not employing our people, then we are not also preparing future entrepreneurs. It is important that we do insist on certain minimum working conditions for many of the companies that are doing a great deal in exploiting our own people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, also important is the need for us to take advantage of the Kenyans diaspora; in Europe and the United States of America (USA). We should give them support in terms of creating opportunities for them to invest in this country. We should also find out for them in terms of what we can do with them out there. We should organise linkages with our own business sector much more aggressively than has been the case. Many hon. Members have already made the point about the need for a rural marshal plan that would be labour-intensive. Also mentioned was the issue about advisory opportunities that are available. Are these very well-disseminated? Do many people know about the various advisory centres that are available to the business people? What are we doing about visa regulations for those that would like to come and invest in this country? What are we doing to support Kenyans who want to go and invest in other countries? Are we ensuring that the requirements by those countries are relaxed?"
}