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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ahenda",
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"content": "Thanks a lot, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. Allow me also to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Finance for his presentation of the Budget this year, which had a lot of hidden goodies. This could pass as one of the best Budget presentations ever made. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as a very good revenue collector, the Minister gave us a flamboyant report on how he is going to collect more revenue. I must also congratulate him here because for the second year running, Kenya will be having a Budget without donor support. This is great. I believe that Kenya is capable of doing much more if we had done away with corruption. A lot of our resources are pilfered through Anglo Leasing type of corruption. If the Minister had cared to look into ways and means of nourishing the cow that gives him the milk, he would have had a better Budget. Instead, he is only looking at how to milk the cow without nourishing it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me say something on the increase of Kshs3.20 per litre on fuel. Today, there are about 10,000 vehicles lying at the port of Mombasa. Some of them are held onto flimsy reasons by KRA. If all these vehicles were released on our roads today, how much money would the Minister collect from the Kshs3.20 extra? But he is keeping those vehicles there, incurring demurrages unnecessarily. The Minister is not looking at how to nourish the cow that is giving him the milk. If these vehicles lie there for the next seven months, we shall have lost billions of shillings that we would have used for Budget support. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you compare sugar with tea and coffee, you will find that there are no incentives given to the sugar farmers that would help them tap more revenue. The sugar industry generates more revenue for this country than tea and coffee combined. That is a fact that the KRA knows about. But the tea and coffee industries bring us more foreign exchange than sugar because they are heavily subsidised. They have a lot of incentives ploughed back by the Government. It is high time the Minister changed his mind to look at nourishing the sugar farmers so that we can continue to have more revenue for our country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of privatizing State corporations year in, year out, when the Budget is being done in order to increase funds for the Budget has to stop. A time is coming when the Minister will have nothing to sell to bridge the shortfall in his Budget. The proceeds from the privatization of public corporations have been going into some individuals' pockets. This has been pre-planned. The individuals have been perceived to be strategic investors, whereby our corporations are offloaded at throwaway prices so that we get the funds to support our Budget. The Nairobi Stock Exchange has been used as a conduit to offload the shares of our state corporations. In any case, it cannot support the Budget. I do not know what they will sell next after they have privatized all the state corporations. Some of these corporations can bring us a lot of revenue if they are recapitalized and made to work on profitable terms. Some of them are run down intentionally so that they can be offloaded to some chosen few individuals. This trend must be checked if we have to sustain our Budget internally without having to look yonder for foreign donors. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me go a little bit further and say that the Budget did very little this time to support local individuals. Kenyans have been over-milked. I have in mind our roads, particularly the road to western Kenya, which is in a pathetic state. I almost lost my life recently because of the poor state of our roads. When I compared the Budget proposals for roads for last year and this year, I discovered that there is a shortfall in the allocation for roads in the country, compared to what we had last year. This is very bad. It is high time the road communication system in this country is upgraded. Roads are a very vital means of development of any country. If you do not have a communication network, then you are not developing yourselves. The Minister should 1486 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 21, 2006 have seen to it that our communication network is perfected. Even those foreigners who are looking forward to coming to invest in this country will not come if we do not have a proper road network. We need a proper road network in order to reach our neighbours. There is a lot of revenue accruing from inter-trade with our neighbours, particularly the opening up of Southern Sudan. The Minister did not take into consideration the road network linking us with our immediate neighbours so that this type of development can be harnessed, so that we can generate revenue to support our Budget. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I really support what the Assistant Minister has just talked about; the dollar vis-a-vis the Kenya Shilling. Indeed, it is in our best interest to have the shilling growing stronger and stronger against the dollar. However, there is a risk whereby most imported items will become more expensive as the dollar goes up. So, it is, indeed, in our interest if the dollar goes down and generates more imports because we rely heavily on imported goods for our development. If the Minister did not look into that issue, it is high time he knew that foreign exchange affects any development of any country vis-a-vis our Budget. The money allocated for any Ministry will be much less than expected if the dollar rate changes before the next financial year. So, I assume that the Minister could have in mind some measures to put in place so that the Kenya Shilling remains at least at par throughout the year without the variations and daily changes against the dollar so that our planners can have one fixed plan that can last for, at least, the next six or seven months. With those few remarks, I beg to support. Thank you."
}