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"id": 470300,
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, His Excellency the President’s Government will remain committed to multi-party democracy and will partner with the Senate and the National Assembly, as well as non-parliamentary parties and independent legislators, including those who have not decided where they belong, like some of our colleagues whom I do not want to mention here - because I do not want to attract points of order - This Government recognizes the role of the opposition as well as that of other players, including the civil society in taking our country forward. Mr. Speaker, Sir, His Excellency the President has promised a lean Government. For the longest time, the taxpayer in this country has been overwhelmed with a large Government, the worst of it being the just ended Grand Coalition Government. It was a very expensive Government with Ministers who were more in number than the Back- benches; with the infrastructure that comes with this kind of arrangement. There were Ministries which had nothing to offer Kenyans other than competing, sometimes in a juvenile manner, for space to be recognized. Some of these Ministries ought to be units, not even departments. At this moment, I want to be humble enough to thank the new Constitution for limiting the number of Ministries. More importantly, I want to thank His Excellency the President and his Deputy for not going for the maximum number of Ministries that the Constitution provided for. His Excellency the President released the structure of his Government. That structure, he promised, will contain 18 Ministries and not the 22 Ministries that Kenyans were expecting. We are proud of the President for keeping his word and being loyal to his commitment of a lean and synchronized Government. He has brought many of the relevant departments together. That is good for the country as it will cut down on costs and improve efficiency. Like he said in his Address, the same will apply to other aspects of Government, including State Corporations as well as diplomatic missions, so that we do not have poor Kenyans, who are currently being displaced by floods, being overtaxed in order to support the greed for portfolios. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Jubilee Government notes that our country is doing well, but not well enough. Therefore, we appreciate that a lot of work has to be done. His Excellency the President has noted, correctly, the financial and ICT sectors could be doing well, but our core sectors of agriculture, manufacturing and transport remain underdeveloped. This is especially so for railway transport, which has been dormant for a long time. His Excellency the President, in his Address, has set out a raft of legislative and other measures that he intends to take to ensure that these other three sectors are able to take off in order to take Kenya to the next level. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Jubilee Government commits itself, as the President said, to ensure that the public wage is brought down. I do not think that any reasonable and patriotic Kenyan has qualms about bringing down the cost of Government. The public wage bill is unsustainable. We hope, as this exercise is going on, that we will look at the entire public sector and not just target legislators as some of the people have already started doing at the moment. There are people in this country, some who are called commissioners, who earn a lot of money. They should also sacrifice for this country. The President and we, as the Legislature, said that we will cooperate with that process. However, we have people who are called commissioners--- We have the Judiciary also which plays an important role in our country. However, I think that the 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."
}