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{
    "id": 404482,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/404482/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 40,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "people who should be working who are not working and we are told that if they are working, they are doing it for free. In other words; wanakaa tu nyumbani . How do you expect this country to have development when 15 million people who are supposed to be of working age are unemployed in this country? This is an official report that has been published today and I hope you have all read it in the media. When the figure is at 15.5 million, it means that it has come to 75 per cent. In other words, 75 per cent of our youth who are of working age are unemployed. Now, do we struggle to look for jobs to give these people a salary or do we sit here in the National Assembly and other boardrooms and plan to send people at home? Are you creating wealth for the country or you are destroying it? First of all, our public wage bill comes to 12 per cent of our GDP. Now, the average all over the world is between 5 per cent and 25 per cent of the GDP. In literally all the developing countries, the range is between 10, 12 to 14 per cent. This is the only country when you take the wage bill and take it as a percentage of the GDP, it comes to that figure. If you want that wage bill to come down, it is not about sacking people or reducing salaries, what you need to do is build the GDP. So, why do we not focus our time and energies as institutions that are mandated to ensure that the GDP grows? The institution that is mandated to ensure that the GDP grows is this House and that that House across the road called the National Assembly. Instead of the National Assembly and the executive focusing on building the GDP, they tell Kenyans that our salaries are high and that 47 or so people should be sent home. I think we are really missing the point. I think there is need for more strategic direction. There is no focus in this Government and I think we need to be told why. I am glad the Senate Majority Leader is here. Though he does not sit in the Cabinet, the message needs to get to the Government that we are misleading Kenyans by trying to focus attention on the wage bill. Let us bake a bigger cake. There is no better opportunity today in this country for baking a bigger cake or building the GDP than the process of devolution. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at what has happened in the last few months, in the few counties where we have already carried out investment forums, they have attracted investments worth billions of Kenya shillings. People have signed off many billions. There are people going directly into those counties to invest. Where was that money and where were those people before? Why did we not hear all those things? Why is the national Government unable to attract even a billion shillings while the county governments from Nyandarua and everywhere else are attracting tens of billions of shillings? If you give Kenyans the opportunity to develop their potential, the resources that are being discovered and people going back to their homes and investing and exploiting their potentials, this is where we can “bake” a bigger cake. So, let us focus on building the GDP but not harassing Kenyans. Finally, poverty is a major problem. In this study that has been published, it says that the number of Kenyans who are living below the poverty line is 50 per cent of the population. That is a shame. It says that in the rural areas, it is, in fact, 51 per cent. Nearly half of the people in rural Kenya, that is 45 per cent, spend less than Kshs1,400 or less than 20 US dollars a month. Poverty in rural Kenya is far worse than in the urban centres. My county, Mandera, is ranked No.46 out of the 48. It is the 46th poorest county. That The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}