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"id": 245906,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/245906/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Miriti",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Trade and Industry",
"speaker": {
"id": 371,
"legal_name": "Petkay Shem Nkiria Miriti",
"slug": "petkay-miriti"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. First, I would like to congratulate the Minister for Finance, like my colleagues have done, for presenting a very well balanced Budget. This Budget addressed many sectors which have been ignored in the past. For the first time, we have money channelled to the youth and very many other sectors. That is why I am surprised when an hon. Member dismisses this Budget as one for the rich. This is a Budget which has taken care of the people from the North Eastern and the Coast regions. In fact, there is affirmative action. It has also taken care of the youth, women and many other sectors which affect the poor. Kenyans are proud and they appreciate the fact that no donor funds were factored in the Budget. This Budget involved only monies collected as tax locally. That is why it is a challenge to Kenyans and Parliamentarians to get involved in productive activities that will help boost revenue collection. They should be involved in activities that can be taxed. We need to get industrialised and have more hon. Members launching small industries. Hon. Members should introduce CDF into the industrial sector so that we can have more areas to get tax from. We need more Kenyans to get involved in trade; whether it is small or large-scale. We need leaders who can encourage Kenyans to get involved in trade. The trend now, and I know it will not stop, is that we will take care of our Budget. If we have to take care of our Budget, we will have to expand the taxation base so that we have more money for development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we had more funds, more areas would have been considered. There are so many areas that have not been considered, like tarmacking of roads, water and power projects. I believe that if we can intensify our production, industrialisation and trade, then next year, we will have enriched our Budget and we shall cater for more projects. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I heard an hon. Member complain about the amount June 27, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1617 of money allocated to the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS). I believe that he was doing so out of ignorance. Without intelligence information, you are not able to understand security matters and comment appropriately. The NSIS is an important organ to this country, just as similar organisations are to their countries. If one knows the amount of money spent by other countries on intelligence collection and analysis, one will not complain about the Kshs5 billion allocated to our NSIS. In some countries, intelligence services own satellites, spying planes, submarines and other high technology equipment, which is very expensive. So, what is spent here in Kenya is insignificant compared to what is spent by other international intelligence organisations. It is said that prevention is better than cure. When we know our enemies then we can be ahead of them. We can avoid a lot of unnecessary problems by knowing our enemies well. I also want to refer to a comment made by an hon. Member on our allocation to the Department of Defence. He said, in an ignorant manner, that just because there is no war, we should not spend a lot of money on defence matters. That is sheer ignorance because we cannot start buying arms and training our military personnel when we are attacked by enemies. We have to be ready always to defend our country and people from foreign aggression. These days, it easy to be attacked by another country. You saw what happened to Iraq. It was just attacked because of its policies. A country can be invaded without notice. You can see the threat being directed at the Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea. If these countries were not strong militarily, foreign forces would already be inside them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to comment on distribution of resources in this Budget. The distribution of resources in this Budget is not equitable. When I went through the Budget, I did not see any new major development project for Meru South District. It was like that last year and the other year. We have always been prioritising road, water and health projects at our District Development Committee (DDC) level. I really do not know what happens. I would like the Minister for Finance to visit Meru South District to see for himself that development activities there are not as many as they are in other districts. We should consider development activities for North Eastern Province, Coast Province and Meru South District. These areas have been forgotten for unknown reasons. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to say that the CDF money is also not equitably distributed. Along with poverty the index and population we should consider the size of constituencies. We should also consider the number of projects and population densities when allocating funds to constituencies, otherwise we will have some constituencies developing faster than others. Kenya has been performing very well in terms of economic growth. But we have a problem with patriotism. Our leaders, who are supposed to be proud of their country's achievements, lack patriotism. Some of our leaders would rather undermine than support the Government. Others prefer giving information about our country to some foreign masters instead of contributing to the development of our country. I wish to call for reconciliation, so that, as we make statements, as leaders, we put the Republic of Kenya first. We should first ask whether what we say and do serve the interests of the country or selfish interests. I am saying this because we have seen that quite a number of leaders are more interested in personal aggrandizement, selfish interests and pursuit of power than they are in the public interest. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to urge the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Roads and Public Works to avail funds to upgrade roads in Nithi Constituency. Many constituencies are suffering because of poor grading of roads. I appeal to the two Ministers to commit themselves to the improvement of our roads. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}