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{
    "id": 272982,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/272982/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 328,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Midiwo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 184,
        "legal_name": "Washington Jakoyo Midiwo",
        "slug": "jakoyo-midiwo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will be very brief. My views on this are known. I think last week we went through this and a bit of friction. However, now that we had saved one of our own, let us go back to the real meat because one of our own is not in the picture. The real issue here is that the financial sector in Kenya is a mess. We all want to take this opportunity to right the wrongs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you read what the experts told us, they said something ought to be done. They said that banks took advantage of the inaction of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). These are experts of high integrity; the best we have, Dr. David Ndii said that the banks were taking advantage of inaction or non-activity of the CBK to make a killing. Let me just say that we are going to begin to do something with interest rates which was a result of that. Tomorrow, we will be tackling the Finance Bill. I want to appeal to my colleagues that Kenyans will be watching what will happen here tomorrow. Will we, again, protect the greed of banks or will we give Kenyans a relief from the greedy banks? The banks are unanimous that they have to make money. In fact, even some of our colleagues have said that banks are there to make money. I disagree. Banks are supposed to facilitate business. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, even the worst economy on earth today is the Greek economy but even there, the interest rate is only 6.5 per cent. Some of the worst performing ones like the Great Britain economy has an interest rate of 0.5 per cent. Why would ours be 32 per cent? The time is now and the hour to reckon is this hour. We want to support the Chairman. I want to encourage the Chairman that tomorrow as we do the Finance Bill, make sure that by today evening all the recommendations we made in that document come to the Finance Bill tomorrow so that we can reform the finance sector for the betterment of our people once and for all. I thank you and support."
}