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{
    "id": 246331,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/246331/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 144,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 197,
        "legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
        "slug": "joshua-ojode"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for recognizing me. I will also add my voice on what my colleagues have said on this Budget. 1504 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 21, 2006 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the very outset, I would agree with some of my colleagues who have said that this is a populist Budget. This is a political Budget because of a number of reasons. You will also agree with me that there are some repetitions which have been done by the Minister. You will remember that in the last two or three years, I think in 1999/2000, we zero-rated duty on computers and its components. I heard the Minister talk about it recently. We also zero-rated duty on tractors and its spare parts. So, there was nothing new the Minister was talking about on the issue of zero-rating duty on farm implements because that had been done a long time ago. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of fuel, I will not talk about it so much because there is a pending Motion which I will be bringing up for debate that will give powers to the Minister for Energy to control petroleum products. You have once been the Minister for Energy and you are aware that there has been a cartel within the petroleum industry which decides what the pump prices will be like on a daily basis. That is the cartel I want to tame and do away with. I am assuring Kenyans that we are going to make sure that the Minister for Energy gets the authority to set the maximum price for fuel. That is the only way to tame these cartels. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the funding for youth is, indeed, a good idea. Some of these things might be well-intentioned, but the issue of implementation, where the money itself has the capacity to go all the way and trickle down to the ordinary people in the grassroots, must be addressed by this Government. I am seeing a situation where that money can as well be misappropriated as they did with the Global Fund. The Global Fund is still looking for the US$2.5 million which has not been accounted for to-date. If this money is not disbursed directly to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), that will be an exercise in futility because it will be misappropriated by the authorities who are intending to allocate it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue which my colleagues have spoken about is that of insecurity. Whatever efforts we put in the development of the country will come to naught if we do not have security. This is the first time since I was born to witness a Government hiring terrorists to terrorise its own people. The Armenians are terrorists who were hired by this same Government."
}