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"id": 246887,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Oloo-Aringo",
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"legal_name": "Peter Oloo Aringo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to quote institutions like the KPOSB, which have wide outlets, have the potential to be used to expand the linkages between the micro-finance sector and the banking sector. This will enable the micro-finance providers to take advantage of the physical presence of the KPOSB outlets for the transfer of funds to the accounts with their clearing banks. Therefore, the financial requirements for thereforms are expected to come from the financial sector, with the adjustment credit being financed by the World Bank. Once we create this bank, we shall ask the Government and the World Bank to put in money in order to lend the poorest of the poor in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am emphasising this because I had an opportunity to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank. I emphasised at that meeting and I am bringing it to this House, that, indeed, there are examples elsewhere where these small micro-credit institutions have successfully liberated people from poverty. If we take the case of Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank or the Rural Bank has been so successful by lending to the poor because they do not have access to the conventional banks. Therefore, a great man, Prof. Yanus, who was the head of the Rural Economic Programmes in the University in Chittagong asked himself: \"How come that we are teaching economics in the universities but poverty is perpetuating itself? What is it that makes poverty continue?\" It is because our economics are on its heads. Instead of standing on its feet, it is standing on its head. Why do I say so? The bulk of our people are in the informal sector. They are the Jua Kali artisans, watchmen of this world and the small-scale farmers. We take their money, put it in the Kenya Post Office Savings Bank (KPOSB) and lend it to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). Already, the KPOSB has Kshs1 billion in the CBK. What do we know about the CBK? We have witnessed Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing scams and collapsed banks! The banks collapse with the savings of the ordinary watchman and house worker. All our house workers have accounts in the KPOSB. Their money is taken to the CBK, then the looters come and these are the cases we are dealing with. The people who have suffered most, instead of making this money available to them, we are availing it to the wealthy people and they are syphoning it out of our economy. That is why the economics is on its head because we are seeing that this person is not creditworthy by conventional bank standards. Therefore, he has no access to the conventional banks. Where will this person ever get a credit to start his business? That is the culture of handouts. They look for the hon. Member to give them handouts. The poor hon. Member, with a constituency of 200,000 June 14, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1339 people, where is he going to get that money in order to start these business? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is already a structure in place, the KPOSB, which can do this function. We must boldly say that the over Kshs18 billion, which is sent to the Government, should now be made available to the ordinary person. That is the thrust of my thesis: That it is the informal sector that will liberate our country from poverty and destitution by making macro-credit a human right in the same way that education, food and air is a human right. We cannot expect these people to start development if they do not have affordable credit affordable to them. The bank, therefore, has achieved the following:- First, it has extended banking facility to the poor, particularly, the rural poor. The poor in the slums of our towns and cities have savings accounts with the KPOSB. However, this money should now be made available to them so that they can have affordable credit and without security. Let us face it! A person in my village who owns a homestead has nowhere else to go. So, what more security do we want? His security is his homestead, wife or wives and children."
}