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"id": 252455,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/252455/?format=api",
"text_counter": 248,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Kituyi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Trade and Industry",
"speaker": {
"id": 293,
"legal_name": "Mukhisa Kituyi",
"slug": "mukhisa-kituyi"
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"content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was speaking in broad terms; I will come down to the specifics. I was in Cabinet with Mr. Raila and Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o when the Government, with substantial and extensive participation by Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o who is my personal friend and former teacher started shifting away from the traditional itemising of detailed budget line to a new standard classification of the Budget, where output rather than line items is put in the broad categorisation. This means that if you go into the details that are read horizontally you have those items that are put under \"other\" delineated. To just look at what you were glad to have in the Printed Estimates, that structure was there in the Printed Estimates which you were party to presenting to this Parliament. At that time you did not find anything wrong with it. But when they come today in the same structure in the Supplementary Estimates, you say that they are hiding money that is being stolen by the Government. That is not April 25, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 647 particularly honest nor is it intelligent. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there were two other things that were of concern to me. The people of Marsabit, Isiolo, North Horr and Moyale desperately need a good road. Those people need to be alive and there before they can use the good road. This country is taking money from other areas; Kshs45 million has been taken from the roads in Bondo District, Kshs125 million has been taken from the roads in Busia District and Kshs350 million in Narok District, because this Government believes that the citizens of this country can understand the immensity of the problem of famine today and say: \"We can forego the initial construction of this road for the next few months if it will keep Kenyans alive.\" You do not want to build a tarmac road for carcasses of animals which were killed because the State could not intervene in famine relief. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, recently, I watched the BBC from Singapore and I was proud to be Kenyan. I saw on the BBC television an army track stopping by the roadside in Modogashe. Army men came out and distributed drinking water to women standing by the road. I saw an army truck supplying hay to pastoralists when the time is over. I felt proud that this is a society that is responding to a domestic problem honourably and collectively. I did not think that by the Government moving resources to address the life and death matter of victims of drought in northern Kenya and other parts of the country, it was reducing Development Estimates vis-a-vis Recurrent Estimates. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have looked at the draft agreement being signed by the Government of Kenya and the Government of China. If you look at the contents of the part that is to be signed by myself and Mr. Buchi Ley on Friday morning, you will see a reflection of the reality that this Government has been thinking about how to source resources to deal with the issue of roads in the face of a shortfall in domestic expenditure. By the end of this week, we will have received a grant as part of the construction of the Nanyuki-Moyale Road. This is a statement of a Government which says that, when we have an emergency at home, let us use resources we had put on line for building roads to attend to an emergency. Friends of our country should step in to ameliorate the problem of infrastructure by putting new money into the construction of roads we were going to attempt to construct. I do not think that a responsible government could do better than that. I heard a statement from the good professor - and I wish he was here to amend it - that this Government is killing development and it is reversing us. Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o and I have been in the same Government and we went to address an international forum recently. We said that public revenues in Kenya today are 350 percent of what they were in January, 2003. If you look at the Budget and the fecundity of the investments on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, you will note that Kshs20 billion has been mopped up locally on the IPO of KenGen. This is a statement of an economy that is up and about. I share the sense that growth alone is not economic development. This Government has done very well in returning us to growth but the essence of economic development and social pacts between the governed and the Government are pacts in which leadership sails beyond our partisan divide. We have to commit ourselves to do what it takes to ensure that no Kenyan will die because of want. We have to ensure that no Kenyan girl will be raped because of a disgraced male and that Kenyans will not be insecure because they do not carry guns into the bedroom. That contract takes more than an Opposition and Government which are ready to settle scores the way some of my colleagues who were only recently with me in the Government are talking before this House. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I heard Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o say that Kenyans want an elected Prime Minister. I do not think so. First of all, there is no country which has an elected Prime Minister. What Kenyans want right now is that no other Kenyans should die because they do not have food due to lack of rain. Let this Government start investing in infrastructure to make sure 648 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 25, 2006 that the next drought will not translate into famine. Those are the more immediate things that Kenyans want, and not the ability of us eloquently settling scores on the Floor of the House and pretend away the responsibilities that we were celebrating only recently. When you hear an hon. Member - not from the Official Opposition party - wailing more than the bereaved about the illegal composition of Government--- I remember very vividly one time when, at the end of a Cabinet meeting, my friend Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o, sat at the same table with Mr. Karume and discussed how they could create synergies between their Ministries. It was an eloquent statement of approval that, that was from a colleague. They could include the budgetary estimates for the Ministry of Mr. Karume, as he worked together with the Ministry of Finance to present the Printed Estimates. But, all over a sudden, his eyes have been opened now! He sees Mr. Karume as the enemy. He did not see that when they were sitting at the same table in the Cabinet. My friend, Mr. Raila, once famously said: \"If you are joining the Government and they give you less than a full mandate, hata mkia ni nyama !\" That was a famous statement from Raila Odinga. But, all of a sudden, he is denigrating Ministries that they are departments. Where was he? Where has he come from?"
}