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{
    "id": 354278,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/354278/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 139,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Omondi G.W.",
    "speaker_title": "The Member for Alego Usonga",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1169,
        "legal_name": "George Washinton Mallan Omondi",
        "slug": "george-washinton-mallan-omondi"
    },
    "content": "To contribute to the Speech of His Excellence the President, I wish to say that he has given us a road map and it is up to us to make sure that his policies are actually actualized. I wish to look at a few areas that His Excellency the President touched on, and which have loopholes. The President talked about the need to promote our exports and make them more competitive in the world market. That will necessitate some changes from the way we control our economy. At the moment, we have got an economic model of free market where we find that even our French beans are being re-exported to us. The eggs and vegetables are re-exported to the country. That has stifled and will continue to stifle our export industry. It is incumbent upon us hon. Members to come up with laws or regulations that will not allow that to happen. Two, the President talked about roads and the need for proper road network in the country. It is true that the Government has done a lot in this regard. But it has been lopsided and it is my concern that with the county governments in place, it is important to identify county headquarters. For example, Siaya County Headquarters is situated in my constituency. Alego- Usonga has a highway which passes through there but it is not tarmacked. In order to open up the economies of those counties, it is important to come up with plans to have highways passing through country headquarters in order to attract commerce. Hon. Deputy Speaker, the other thing that His Excellency the President talked about and which, again, may not be achievable if we do not change in this House is the way we do our things. There is need to preserve 30 per cent of procurement business to the youth. The way procurement laws are applied, they come with a lot of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank conditionalities. Those conditionalities completely leave out our youths and, more so, those who are beginners in business and are relying on Youth Enterprise Development Fund to raise their initial capital. We need to look into that and come up with regulations that will favour our youth in the rural areas. With regard to agriculture, the Government has been looking at traditional agricultural areas at the expense of subsistence farmers."
}