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{
    "id": 430094,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/430094/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 340,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Lati",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2762,
        "legal_name": "Jonathan Lelelit Lati",
        "slug": "jonathan-lelelit-lati"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, if you look at this Report, there are obviously both weaknesses and strengths within our macro-economic sector; if you look at our economy today, which is a very important thing in contribution of our budget. If you look at the general economic growth framework, we are doing not so badly but not so well. This is because we are growing at the level of some other sub-Saharan African countries. If you look at our ranking in the world today, we are ranking number 82 in terms of economic growth. This is where we really need to push our buttons so that we can generate and move our country to a middle income level. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, if you look at our inflationary pressure, it is something that is disturbing our economy. We stand at about 5.8 per cent inflationary pressure today and that ranks us way down; about number 164 in the world, according to CIA factor. With the inflation of that magnitude, our resources or assets lose value and we end up buying less with the kind of money we have. I am just hoping that the people concerned with our monetary policy within the Central Bank of Kenya are looking into this because it does not matter how much we are growing our economy, if the inflationary pressure is really huge as it is today, we can do very little to help our country. We have heard a lot of noise about our GDP to debt ratio. If we look at it, that is probably one area that we are not doing as bad. I am glad that the World Bank just came with a report that indicates a positive censure on our GDP debt ratio. We have about 52 per cent and that one ranks us about number 60 in the world. If you look at all the big economies in the world, the USA and all those economies, they are behind us. I have to give an example of Japan which is about 200 per cent debt to GDP ratio. Therefore, we are not doing well in terms of debts; but our country is doing well. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is so much talk about wage bill and it is a serious problem to our macro-economy today because unemployment is something that eats into our economic growth and affects us all. I want to say that our biggest problem now is to try and bring people to work in our economy. At 40 per cent, we are one of the worst economies in terms of unemployment. I am sure there are things that are being proposed by Members of this House including taking away those nominated seats. It is something that I tend to agree with, particularly on the Senate side. Forty two per cent of the Members of our Senate are nominated whereas in senates around the world, there are no nominations. There is a reason why we have the Senate and if we borrowed from the United States of America Senate, we should also borrow from its history. The US Senate was established to represent regions and states and the reasons why there are no nominations there is because there is no affirmative action that you can build into regions. You cannot have a female or a male county in Kenya. You cannot The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}