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{
    "id": 515560,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/515560/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 138,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Musimba",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1804,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Mweu Musimba",
        "slug": "patrick-mweu-musimba"
    },
    "content": "especially special because a lot of the human capital in this nation was mobilised to action. The bedrock of this economy is our youth, disadvantaged women and persons living with disabilities. However, we are not seeing a deliberate engagement of the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) with these groups. The mainstream industries which are quoted in the securities exchange employ slightly over 300,000 people. Our other cottage industries employ in excess of two million people of this economy. These are the Jua Kali artisans. These churn and contribute to more than 60 per cent of the incomes we collect on a yearly basis. Whereas the National Treasury projects to collect upwards of Kshs1.32 trillion, we need to make deliberate measures in achieving a balanced budget approach towards our economy. In this regard, security is paramount because we are talking about shared prosperity. We must look at things like strategic reserves of our gold and foreign exchange that enables this nation to purchase its inputs. The BPS speaks of about four- and-a-half months whereas we need to grow this to in excess of 24 months. The world is in a volatile state with the crises emanating out of Russia and the Middle East which are the major suppliers of oil. You can see major economies such as the United States of America (USA) are moving away from oil dependency. We need to take such proactive measures as a nation and ensure that these things are well captured because we expose our underbelly. Such initiatives like pushing for a free port are good. The BPS is talking about its establishment within Nairobi. However, strategically that would be wrong. We need to put it closer to the port, maybe in counties like Taita Taveta and Voi so that we encourage our African neighbours to come and trade with us. This will provide onward mobility. Take the example of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which has positioned itself as a business hub despite being oil producers. This strategy has worked very well for them over the last 15 years. Today they are a major economic hub. By its geographical location, Kenya can afford the same buoyancies. We would have to go back and look at our strategies of growing these strategic reserves. When it comes to the area of oil, at any one time Kenya can store only 33,000 cubic metres of oil, which is roughly one-and-a-half months’ consumption capacity for this nation. Again, this puts our economy at risk. If anything happens, either at the port or in the Gulf of Aden, we will not be able to get the commodities which propel our economy forward. So, we need to look at how to enhance our storage capacity as we move towards what you call “lifestyles”. We need to say: “If we are not growing it, let us not consume it.” You can draw examples from where lifestyle changes have occurred like in our fight against HIV and AIDS. It is possible that people can change their lifestyles. If our foreign currency depletion is as a result of importing things like sugar, which ultimately pose a great health risk to our populace, we should reduce the importation and grow our commodities. The other pillar to look at is the political pillar. Vision 2030 establishes economic, political and social pillars. The political pillar has been left out. We need to look at how to entrench performance contracting. Our major opportunities in oversight are going to be effective within our committees if we have performance contracting measures within Parliament that cascade down to the committees. We can then say that we are going to 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."
}