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{
    "id": 695391,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/695391/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 77,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "items like tiles, cement and iron sheets. We are basically exporting jobs that we badly need at home. What we must do as a country within the framework of EPA is to invest in producing at home. It is a no brainer. China is building a railway line in Kenya today and it is importing everything they are using, from the nuts and bolts to cement. They are exporting jobs that we needed at home like yesterday. How do we call ourselves a country if we are going to allow people to support their home industries by bringing their products here and in effect, turning us to a consumer nation? The same applies to furniture. I am always happy sitting in the seats we have in Parliament because I know they were built by Kenyans. However, Hon. Speaker, the furniture in your office is probably imported. The furniture in our offices and in the Cabinet Secretaries’ Offices is all imported. How do we grow if we are going to import basic items? At the core of this agreement is not what we are saving in terms of market access. What will determine how we proceed? The success of the EPA will not be in terms of meeting the deadline concerned, but it will be in terms of how, as a country, we prepare to take advantage of the market access. The EAC has five member States. The EU has 27. This means the market access we are getting is so huge that we cannot meet its demand if we do not invest in a better manner. I have proposed a legislation that provides for anti-dumping and counter-availing safeguard measures so that we do not open up our industries to uncompetitive products. European countries subsidise their production by almost 100 percent. It is said that an average European cow will be given US$10,000 in a month and yet in Kenya, a human being lives on US$2 a day. Europe subsidises almost all the things they sell to us. We must ensure that we have a framework which stops products that are subsidised in order to allow fair competition. That is the only time the EPA we are signing today will help. I strongly recommend this particular agreement to this House and ask all of us to support it so that we can support trade in this country. With those remarks, I support."
}