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{
    "id": 572420,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/572420/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 385,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murungi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 93,
        "legal_name": "Kiraitu Murungi",
        "slug": "kiraitu-murungi"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I rise to support this Motion. I am one of the few Kenyans who know President Obama personally having spent one year with him in 1990/91when we both studied at Harvard Law School. He is a very bright person and we studied courses related to reinvention of democracy, human rights and international law. I spent time taking tea with President Obama and he was very concerned and took a lot of interest about the happenings in Kenya at that time. That was the time of the clamor for multi-partism. There is a lot of hullaballoo in this country about the coming of President Obama. He is not a Kenyan but an American of Kenyan origin and he is coming here as an American President to promote America’s vital interests abroad. They are three at the moment. One is economic interest – promoting American trade and investment in the world. Two, he is coming to fight terrorism. The war against terror is also part of the American vital interest. Three is to expand the frontiers of democracy. Do not be surprised if he talks about gay rights because that is part of the agenda. In fact, they call it promotion of democracy abroad. Madam Temporary Speaker, those Kenyans who live in mud and grass thatched houses and who think that they will now live in a stone house because President Obama has come are wrong. Kenyan goats are not going to produce twins because President Obama has arrived. For a long time, the American foreign policy has caused a lot of suffering and poverty in this continent. Do not forget about the Structural AdjustmentProgrammes (SAPs) which reduced public spending by governments especially on vulnerable groups in the 1980s. We should not forget that the American foreign policy has focused more on values than on economic development and infrastructure of Africa. I do not remember a road in this country which was constructed by USA. Neither do I remember water projects which have been done by Americans. They have been left to Japan and China. Now that he has come to Kenya, fetched water in Kogelo and knows the problems of Kenyans, time has come for the American foreign policy towards Kenya to shift so that we do not merely focus on the lectures that they give us on democracy and corruption. They have lectured us for ten years and more, some of us have also gone to school with them and we know those things. Surely, even foolish people, after being taught for 10 years, should have learnt. Madam Temporary Speaker, let them come with new things. We would like more focus to be on economic transformation of this country. However much we preach to hungry Kenyans, they will never become democratic. The boys will still follow people with their little money and even kill opponents during campaigns. Let us promote the economy, do infrastructure and appeal to President Obama to shift the American foreign policy towards this country."
}