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{
    "id": 257660,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/257660/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 550,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Farah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 16,
        "legal_name": "Farah Maalim Mohamed",
        "slug": "farah-maalim"
    },
    "content": "I meant elected! Mr. Speaker, Sir, I said I support this Motion with a very powerful rider. I also want, from the outset, to congratulate and recognize the passion with which Mr. Jakoyo Midiwo has taken this issue of interest rates. I have seen myself how Kenyans have suffered as the result of interest rates that are not controlled. All of us remember what we went through in 1991/92 in this country where a majority of the middle class Kenyans here lost their properties to banks when the interest rates went as far as 75 per cent to 78 per cent. Therefore, there is need for us to protect Kenyans in this case. I want the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance to listen to me very carefully. The Treasury and the Minister as the regulator, you will not be doing a lot of service to the idea or designs to bring down interest rates when you have Treasury bonds that are approaching and attracting interest rates that are close to 18 per cent. When the Treasury itself is giving an interest rate that is high, the banks have guaranteed returns on the Treasury bonds themselves. There is no way they are going to take their money to the banks to be lent at the rate of 11 per cent or 12 per cent, which is affordable to Kenyans, when the Treasury is attracting a much higher rate than that. So, the need for us to help Kenyans is there, the powers are there and the regulating regime is there. Let us save Kenyans using the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance. I want to leave that at that. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we do not want to have a country whose business elite are engaged in money profiteering; trading in money! We want people to trade in commodities. We want people to industrialize. We do not want people to trade in money. You go in, you attract a very high interest rate, you have a fluctuating foreign exchange rate and you bring money in and out. That is not good for this country. That essentially is not going to stem inflation and is also not going to protect Kenyans. I am inclined to believe that we must have a law in place for the bankers association. We need a proper anti-trust law in place. Without an anti-trust law, those of you remember the great depression in the United States of America (USA) when the late Franklin De Lauro Roosevelt---"
}