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{
    "id": 466793,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/466793/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 390,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Ottichilo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 131,
        "legal_name": "Wilber Ottichilo Khasilwa",
        "slug": "wilber-ottichilo"
    },
    "content": "First and foremost, I want to thank the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade and the Cabinet Secretary for preparing this Bill. This is a very concise and progressive Finance Bill. If we compare it with the previous Bills, this is very concise and very good. Why am I saying so? This is because this Bill captures very important aspects of our economy and particularly as regards to the transport system. Our railway system has been in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) I would say probably for the last 90 years. This is a system that has never functioned and even when as a country we decided we wanted to privatise our railway so that we could effectively and efficiently use it, it is like we came from the frying pan into the fire. The famous Rift Valley Consortium which took over our railway system basically looted the railway property and to date there is very little for Rift Valley Consortium to show. So, therefore, for this country to decide to move forward and put up a standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Malaba and hopefully to Kisumu, Luanda and Butere, I believe if this happens it is going to spur a lot of economic development and we are going to really deal with the issue of unemployment during the construction phase. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are going to deal with the issue of unemployment during the construction phase. So, as much as we are going to tax Kenyans to pay for this railway, I believe it is a worthy course. After all we are taxing Kenyans on many aspects, but the money is not put into useful issues. So, I believe this is useful course. With regard to retirement benefits, many Kenyans work for this country over 30 or even 40 years, but when they retire they do not get their benefits. They live in abject poverty and die miserably because the retirement institution is non-functional and you cannot see anything coming out of that. If you try to go and look for your retirement benefits, and it is just across here; you will be shocked because nothing happens. So, we need to completely re-engineer and restructure the retirement benefit institution so that, at least, Kenyans can live a dignified life after they retire. So, to me this is a very progressive step to see that are all Kenyans live a good life before their creator calls them. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to the East African Development Bank, to me that is a very good step being taken. It is important that we construct our own bank. The East African Development has been around for many years, but we have never given it the teeth or the immunity it needs. We spend more time going to Washington DC to worship International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and all these other banks. But in return they give prescriptions that cripple this country. So, it important that we promote our own regional bank so that in future our children can borrow money from their own community rather than borrowing from multinationals who are interested in profits and marginalizing the disadvantaged. 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."
}