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"id": 255031,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/255031/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. M'Mukindia",
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"speaker": {
"id": 271,
"legal_name": "Kirugi Joseph Laiboni M'Mukindia",
"slug": "kirugi-mmukindia"
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the President's Speech. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President covered many areas of concern in this country. The first thing that this Government has done is to ensure continued economic growth. That has been impressive in the last three years. However, even in that growth, from a negative growth in 2002 to a positive of 5 per cent last year, the economic benefits are not being felt at the grassroots. The Government must try to ensure that those benefits are felt by wananchi . I have a lot of sympathy for people in drought-stricken areas. They are dying. On one hand, we had an economic growth of 5 per cent last year and, on the other hand, people are starving to death. That is not acceptable! Therefore, we must confront that issue head-on. We cannot be happy with a 5 per cent economic growth rate that is not translating to better lives for our people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am disappointed in that respect because there are areas which are very productive. Coffee, pyrethrum, tea and other crops are grown in those areas. However, if you look at the exchange rate of the Kenya Shilling against the dollar from 2002 to date, the Kenya Shilling has moved from Kshs78 to the dollar to Kshs72. That means that, for every dollar sale of tea, the farmer is losing Kshs6. I am very concerned because the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has consistently said that it is not their business. Then, I wonder: What business do they have? Who are they serving if the Kenyan farmer is starving and I, being a Member of Parliament and getting a huge salary, say: \"It is not my business!\" What business do they have? There are also losses in tourism. We earned US$700 million last year. For every dollar of that amount, we are losing Kshs6. That is Kshs4.2 billion lost through exchange rate alone. That is money that could have gone to wananchi . That money could have been taken to Coast Province to help the people who are starving in Ganze Constituency. The President himself said that he requires Kshs6.3 billion to move food from Kitale, Uasin Gishu - the bread basket of Kenya - to areas where people are starving. That money can be got by simply moving the Kenya Shilling/US Dollar exchange rate. It is simple! We say that we do not have money and yet it is staring us in the face. I do not understand that. I would like to encourage the Minister for Finance to seriously look into that. We run our economy in such a way that we hurt the poorest of the poor in this country. That is not fair. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue I want to raise is that we appear to support certain exporters. Our exports are more expensive today than Tanzanian and Ugandan exports, simply because of the exchange rates. Why can the Minister for Finance not see that he is March 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 163 hurting the economy of this country, the manufacturers, the people who are productive, our farmers and livestock exporters? Why does he want to protect importers of sugar and other commodities? Is that why we are here? We really have to confront these issues. Secondly, we consistently keep talking about bringing direct foreign investment. According to the statistics, we realised Kshs5.3 billion from foreign direct investments in 2004 and Kshs10.5 billion last year. Compare that amount of money with the Kenyan diaspora's contribution of Kshs50 billion last year. This means that whatever direct foreign investment comes in is peanuts, compared to what Kenyans contribute to this country. Unfortunately, and this is something that needs to be looked into, nobody has given statistics on what we might call \"domestic direct investments\". How much domestic investment did we do last year? I am sure that more than Kshs10.3 billion was realised from direct domestic investment. Maybe, an hon. Member put up a small house and invested in a small business somewhere and wananchi invested in farming, but that money has not been quantified. We must put more effort in encouraging domestic investment rather than keep talking about foreign direct investment, which is too little. The foreigners can run away when things change. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad that His Excellency the President said that he will strengthen regional co-operation. This is a good policy and we should do that. I support that policy very strongly. The trade between Kenya and the rest of the region amounts to 48 per cent of the total export rate. However, I am disappointed with the countries our Cabinet Ministers visit. They do not visit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and Southern Sudan, which has been visited by Mr. Mungatana and Mrs. Ngilu. This is a huge potential market for Kenya. The Minister for Trade and Industry has not found it useful to visit Southern Sudan. Therefore, where is the effort of trying to boost trade in the region? Does it really happen? Most Ministers and hon. Members visit Japan, Australia, Europe and the United States of America. How many of us have visited our region? It is only the Departmental Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations that has tried to build regional integration in this area."
}