HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 245472,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/245472/?format=api",
"text_counter": 144,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. L.M. Maitha",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 249,
"legal_name": "Lucas Baya Mweni Maitha",
"slug": "lucas-maitha"
},
"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I wish to comment on the Budget. This is the fourth Budget by the NARC Government. It has been regarded as the best so far, although that one should be put in quotes. It has been made with the assumption that the economy has grown by 5.8 per cent. However, that is not reflected on the ground. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to support the views of my colleagues that this Budget was basically political. However, it has not even taken more than a week for Kenyans to realise that, virtually everybody is heavily taxed. The poor are feeling the consequences now. Increment of fuel prices does not help the poor. Today, a constituent from Malindi, who used to pay Kshs800 to travel from Malindi to Nairobi, has to pay Kshs1,200. That is, so and yet this Budget is said to be pro-poor. It has not helped that constituent! Kenyans will be forced to cough more to buy foodstuffs because of fuel prices. Such Kenyans have not been assisted by this Budget. So, I join my colleagues in saying that it was a mistake to increase the price of fuel. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, all the same, there are key areas which I feel the Government has neglected. Kenya is an agricultural country. We have just come out of a very bad drought and we thought that this country had learnt a lesson. This Budget was supposed to address many of those 1664 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 28, 2006 issues. In Coast Province, more than half of the citizens do not have land security. They are settled on land that is privately owned by absentee landlords. The Minister for Finance, who was formerly in charge of land, had been promising land reforms. But there is nothing in the Budget to indicate that the Government will invest heavily to back land reforms. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Government has said that it is going to honour the title deeds owned by the absentee landlords. How do you expect the citizens who are living on land that does not have any security to engage in meaningful agriculture? The Government, for the fourth year running, has deliberately condemned our people into slavery. It has isolated them from participating meaningfully to the growth of our economy. I believe that the consequences of this are yet to be seen fully. The Minister has severally promised to enhance the Settlement Fund Trustee (SFT) through the Budget, so that the Government can acquire land and allocate it to our citizens. That did not happen. We feel that this Budget does not augur well, especially for the coastal residents. On the same note, we have given many examples of our neighbouring countries which are deserts, which have food security. Egypt is one of them. It is a shame that we import oranges and milk from Egypt. I thought that the Minister would set aside some money for the development of the Tana River and Athi River basins. Most parts of Eastern and North Eastern Provinces are fertile. We need to invest heavily and supply water to those areas in order to produce enough food and have food security. Eastern Province is not as dry as Egypt and Algeria are. There is provision for this in the Budget. Maybe some people are doing business when there is drought in this country and, therefore, they have no intention to address the issue of food security. Year in, year out, millions of cubic metres of water continue to flow into the Indian Ocean. Everyday, we talk about this issue in this House, but the people who are involved in decision- making never address it. They must be benefitting when our people are distressed. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, Kenya is an agricultural country. We are still far from industrialising, but we need to expand the economic base. There is one industry which has been neglected; the fishing industry. Kenya has about 600 to 800 kilometres of coastline. Along that coastline, and within our exclusive economic zone, there is a multi-billion fishing industry by foreigners. Last week, I asked a Question on this issue and I thought that the Government would do something to empower our people to engage themselves in fishing. There is nothing to reflect that in the Budget. Fishermen need proper fishing gear in order to fish effectively. Until when are our people going to use crude nets? We have licensed foreigners to harvest our fish and marine resources along our coastline. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, everyone knows that this is a big industry in Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA), and yet it has been left in the hands of foreigners. Year after year, the Budget does not address it. I feel the Minister for Finance is not serious when we talk about expanding the economic base of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the issue of the collapsed industries. I commend the Government for having re-opened the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) this week. That is a positive sign, but again there is another side of the coin. This Government is deliberately pursuing selective development. The Government so far has re-opened the Kenya Co-operative Creameries (KCC), but KCC had branches everywhere which have not been re-opened. We have KCC in Mariakani which only needs Kshs30 million to re-open. This is the fourth year, and yet it has not been re-opened. We have the KMC branch in Mombasa and this is the fourth year and it has not been reopened. Why is it that all the industries in the Coast Province are deliberately left to rot and die? Is it a deliberate policy of this Government to disempower the coastal people so that it might continue having a political advantage over us? June 28, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1665"
}