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"id": 245694,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
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"speaker": {
"id": 195,
"legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity. Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Minister for presenting his first Budget. I am told it was very ably presented. I also want to congratulate his Assistant Minister. I know that the two will make a very good team at the Treasury. I am contributing to this Motion as the hon. Member for Langata Constituency. I want to say what my people feel about this Budget. This Budget has been seen as a poor man's Budget. However, amazingly, people in Kibera are not happy with it. The reason is that after increasing the fuel levy, the cost of transport went up almost immediately. I want to invite the Minister to go and stand on the Mbagathi Road in the morning at 5.00 a.m to see for himself how thousands of people from Kibera walk to the extreme end of Industrial Area to work. I could not have disagreed more with my colleague, the hon. Member for Embakasi, when he said that this is a poor man's Budget. He also represents residents of this City like hon. Gumo June 28, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1697 and myself. He knows very well that because of the increase in the fuel levy, the price of everything has virtually increased. The cost of energy has gone up, yet most of our people use paraffin as a source of energy. So, this is going to cause a lot of suffering to our people. I do not see the logic in removing the road license, increasing fuel price and passing the increase to the consumer. The increase in the Sugar Development Levy will also be transferred directly to our farmers. This is going to cause a lot of suffering to the already over-burdened and impoverished sugar farmers. I am a sugar farmer and I know the kind of misery to which our sugar farmers are subjected. Sometimes, some farmers get nothing after delivering their sugar-cane to factories. At the end of the day, when they get their pay sheets, they find that they owe the factory money. So, the Minister should sit down and tackle the nitty gritty of this issue and see how sugar farmers can be saved. We have been talking about poverty alleviation. To do this, we need to look at factors that are causing poverty. We should look at how we should address poverty and the high cost of living. The Government is all the time responding to these challenges in its traditional way. When trade unions demand wage increase, it is increased arbitrarily on Labour Day. The salaries of our civil servants are increased arbitrarily. This is not the solution to the poverty problem facing this country. Our people continue to demand high wages and salaries because of the high cost of living. Why should we not address the causes of poverty rather than dealing with its consequences? The high cost of food, transport, medication and rent are contributing factors to poverty. How can we deal with these issues? We cannot continue increasing our salaries and wages when we want to attract direct foreign investment into this country. Already, Kenya is rated as a very high wage economy. A number of companies that would otherwise want to invest here are discouraged by our high wages. They go to low cost destinations like India, China, and even some of our neighbouring countries. So, we should put in place measures that will create incentives for investors. I now wish to comment on the zero-rating of farm equipment. It has been known since time immemorial that this does not translate to reduced cost of items used by farmers. We are just putting more money into the pockets of dealers. The dealers in farm implements in this country sometimes make 300 per cent profit. Why should the Minister not deal with these issues more effectively? I am also happy with the increase of the CDF Funds. But I would want to know the criteria that is used by the Government when allocating resources to constituencies. When talking about poverty, we need to know how it is measured. I represent one of the poorest constituencies in the country, but it receives half of what other constituencies receive. My constituency has a very big population. We should be fair in the distribution of CDF funds. I still maintain that we need to invest heavily in infrastructure. I want to say that the Budget is distorted by putting too much resources in the Recurrent Expenditure as opposed to Development Expenditure. We are poor because we are under developed. So, we will not develop if we continue putting a lot of resources into the pockets of people rather than into infrastructural development. By investing heavily in infrastructure, we will be able to attract more local and foreign investments. I am also not happy about the introduction of the Capital Gains Tax, because of its negative consciences. There has been no attempt to introduce incentives to women and youth in this Budget. The Kshs1 billion allocated to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, as far as I am concerned, is just tokenism. We need to come up with comprehensive programmes for emancipation of our women and youth. What has been done is something that is gratitude-oriented. Putting some little money in the hands of the Minister for Youth Affairs will not help this country. I was very sad when I saw African teams going to the World Cup, and Kenyan teams 1698 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 28, 2006 remaining behind here. We are just cheering other African teams participating in the World Cup. This is because sports activities in this country are collapsing. Our athletes perform well internationally, not because the Government does anything for them, but basically because they perform with their thorax. There is no attempt by the Government to promote and develop the sports potential in this country. We should invest more money in developing our youth and sports in this country. Nothing has been done in this regard. The Minister has removed road licences, but I want the Government to move a step further and remove the police road blocks on our roads. These police road blocks, as the Minister knows, are nothing but toll stations. They impose additional taxation on our already over-taxed population. The road blocks are doing nothing in crime prevention. Traffic police officers are not concerned with crime. In fact, many traffic policemen have approached me when they were removed from the Traffic Department. They appealed to me to intervene so that they were taken back to roads, because they were hungry! So, the Minister should talk to his colleagues and ensure that police road blocks are removed all over the country. They can embark on mobile patrolling like is the case in other countries. I was in the USA last week and on my way from Washington to New Jersey, several people were being frisked out of the road because they were either overspeeding or driving dangerously. There is a light that motorists are shown to warn them to stop and then they are dealt with on the spot. So, this blanket blocking of every vehicle as if everybody is a criminal needs to stop. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to see more money being allocated for health and the development of our roads. With those few remarks, I beg to oppose."
}