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"id": 254841,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wambora",
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"legal_name": "Martin Nyaga Wambora",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you. I wish to take this opportunity to join my colleagues in thanking His Excellency the President for a wonderful Speech. It was very focused on the aspirations and requirements of the majority of Kenyans. As a matter of fact, I want to focus on three areas only, namely, the economic growth rate, Sessional Papers and Bills. On the economic growth, I want to say that since President Kibaki took over power in 2003, we have seen very commendable growth in this country. This is evidenced by the growth rate which has grown to about 5 per cent and also the value of investment which has grown to Kshs10.5 billion. Now, the problem is that this has mainly benefited the big companies like the East African Breweries Limited (EABL), Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Barclays Bank and Kenya Airways. However, the impact of this development is yet to filter to the rural and urban poor. But those who April 4, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 315 have studied some Economics know the reason. It is simply that the economy has not grown fast enough, or the growth rate is not high enough. It is only when the economic growth rate reaches 7 per cent and above, that the impact of the increased economic growth rate will begin being felt in the rural areas, for example, Runyenjes, and elsewhere in urban areas. To achieve this, the Government needs to address itself to six areas, because it is important that we grow at a faster rate than we are doing. One of these areas is value addition. This song has been sung again and again. This is the easiest way to double the prices of our commodities because that is what we have. We also need to double the value of our products of speciality. Secondly, there is an area called out-sourcing. A very good example is what we saw sometime last month about a company called Kencall which provides services on behalf of United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) companies. It is already employing 100 people, and it can employ more. Many more Kenyan companies can do this with Information Technology (IT). There is a third area which this Government should address to really stimulate the economy of this country; that is, concessioning. The major advantage of concessioning is that you do not have to spend taxpayers' money. You spend other people's money. There is nothing that has such a big advantage as concessioning. This can be very useful indeed. The fourth area that this Government should address to increase the wealth of the people in the country is marketing. Proper marketing should ensure that we are not selling our products as commodities, as we do currently. We are selling our coffee as a commodity very cheaply instead of adding value by packaging and marketing it as a Kenyan premium product. That is not right for this country. We are not branding Kenya. Mr. Midiwo drew my attention to the branding of Uganda and Lebanon in the Cable News Network (CNN). Why can we not do the same for Kenya? That is the way to go. I am talking about geographical indication where we say: These products are made in Kenya and they have added value, so that they can be sold at higher prices. This is what we are not doing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the fifth measure we need to put in place in order to bring prosperity to this country is to improve our infrastructure. In this regard, I would like to start by talking about our roads. I have travelled to over 60 countries, but I have never seen a country with as bad roads as Kenya. Even countries as poor as Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda have better roads. What is the problem? We make big mistakes in the designs of our roads and in procurement. We also over-value our tenders. Thirdly, we do not maintain our roads. The other infrastructural facilities like rail transport, energy and telecommunications also require a lot of attention. Finally, in order to boost our economy, we need to decentralise the expenditure of the national cake. I am talking about increasing the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) from the current 2.5 per cent of the national Budget to 7.5 per cent, so that we can have more resources where the people need them most, and we shall make a lot of difference. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will now move to another area. As some hon. Members said, in his Address to this House, the President talked of several Sessional Papers and Bills which are going to be introduced to this House during this Session. I do not want to go into the details of those Bills and Sessional Papers because they are too many. That objective is not achievable because of the way the Business of this House is organised. It is organised in such a manner that we are not able to transact so much Business. No wonder we passed only seven out of 25 Bills in the last Session. That is because even the House Business Committee does not work like a private organisation. We are not organised. We just do business. Instead of prioritising our Business, we spend too many days discussing, for instance, the 316 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 4, 2006 Presidential Speech. The Presidential Speech should be discussed in three to four days, and not seven days. We need to do something about our Standing Orders, so that we can transact more business. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will, very briefly, touch on four Sessional Papers, which are very important. Some of these are about agriculture and irrigation. We have not fully utilised our arid and semi-arid land because we have not developed a comprehensive irrigation policy. Another Sessional Paper is on ICT, which is about information technology. That is the direction in which the world is moving. We also have the Sessional Paper on Gender Equality Development, and the one on National Youth Development. These two last Sessional Papers address issues of two very energetic categories of our society. These Sessional Papers will assist in optimum utilization of the largely idle labour in these two categories of our society. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to mention six Bills, which are addressing the issues of the poor people. These Bills are mainly dealing with the small and medium-scale enterprises or deposit-taking micro-finance and savings and credit co-operative societies, for example, the SACCO Bills. These three Bills will definitely have an impact on the poor people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the fourth Bill, which is very important, is the Banking (Amendment) Bill, which will bring into the operation of the in duplum rule. Most of our people have become very poor or have even died after taking excessive loans. All their properties have been taken away by banks because of loans which have earned interests which are double the principals. This is because of the absence of the in duplum rule and the Banking (Amendment) Bill will take care of that. The fifth one is the proposed amendment to the Coffee Act of 2001, which will ensure that there is direct marketing of coffee and operationalise the Coffee Development Fund. Farmers should benefit from this fund in terms of improving their production and marketing their produce. This will also double the farmers' earnings for the same quantity because of the additional advantages of direct marketing. Let me go to the Kenya Maritime Authority Bill of 2006, which is the first step towards making Mombasa a free port. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}