{"id":496556,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/496556/?format=json","text_counter":63,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Ochieng","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":2955,"legal_name":"David Ouma Ochieng'","slug":"david-ouma-ochieng"},"content":"understand this. We must agree that we are limping like everybody else. There is this fallacy that in the EAC framework, Kenya will benefit more than the others. If you look at the figures, we now know that Uganda has benefited more than Kenya. Tanzania now trades more with us than any other country. So, the benefits that this country could get from the EAC framework are being foregone because we have not involved the public. We have not undertaken the necessary reforms to ensure that our people benefit. Hon. Speaker, a couple of things have happened in this country and in this Parliament since you became the Speaker, and we became Members of Parliament that are worth noting. One, for example, is that we have made laws in this Parliament that were meant to make doing business easier. A Monetary Union can never work well if doing business is still difficult. As we move forward into the Union, I would urge the Government of Kenya to ensure that laws and policies that are required are harmonized early enough. Our benefiting in this framework will only depend on our knowledge of areas that are beneficial to our people. We need to know the areas that will not give us benefits, so that we can move into those areas early enough to ensure this happens. One concern that I would like to raise even as we ratify this Protocol is the involvement of politicians in the process. You sit in the ACP/ EAC Caucus and you know that in other areas before countries move into particular processes, politicians are involved very intensely and not at the end of the process, where someone brings a protocol telling you to ratify and, please, do not make any reservations because we know this works this way. Let Parliament be involved early enough because it is only through Parliament that the public will know what is happening and they will benefit. If you go to Busia today or Namanga, you will cross the border using your National Identity Card. Kenyan citizens and even some Members of Parliament here still go to pick passports to travel to Uganda and Tanzania because they do not know that they can travel using the National Identity Card. Therefore, it is our duty to let the public know the benefits we get in this union and allow them time to prepare. Hon. Speaker, as we go to monetary union, one thing that is going to grow is the service industry. Europe has decided to outsource producing products which they never used to do. They are now into banking, insurance and financial services. Monetary union requires that kind of framework so that the Government of Kenya should now move towards ensuring that the service industry grows as we move towards this monetary union. Hon. Speaker, as I finish, the period given to us, the time we are hoping that we will move to this monetary union is 2030. During the Committee deliberations, we argued with technocrats and our feeling was that this period could be short. The monetary union that we have in the world today is the European Union which has taken a very long time. In fact, when the opinion was sought in this negotiation, they said that EAC is moving very fast. That they do not think these 10 or 15 years will be enough for us to move to that level. However, in my view, the level of ambition by the President is quite encouraging. If that political will can be transferred to this House so that we walk together in this, then by the time we get to 2030, we will be near there and our citizens can benefit from the 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."}