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{
    "id": 723084,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/723084/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Korir",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1356,
        "legal_name": "Wesley Kipchumba Korir",
        "slug": "wesley-kipchumba-korir"
    },
    "content": "We have many financial institutions at the moment. There is the table banking system that most women are involved in. We have our mothers and neighbours in table banking. In every village in this country, women have come together and formed a table banking system. From there, they save, put their money together, share and borrow it. Many poor families are now able to feed their children and take them to school because of the table banking system that has been created in our villages. When I came here as a Member of Parliament for Cherangany, I realised that there was a need to encourage our youth to adopt the culture of saving. The culture of saving is not part of our cultures in Kenya. A lot of people cannot save because they earn very little. They cannot go to banks. Some of them cannot even open bank accounts. Therefore, the key is to encourage as many SACCOs as possible in our villages, so that the young people can access credit and can be taught the culture of saving and borrowing through their savings. Whenever weekends approach, I witness a number of Members going around asking for signatures, so that they can get money from BUCOSO. This shows the importance and need for SACCOs in our society. If Members depend on SACCOs for survival every weekend, then what about the villagers out there? As we think of regulating and putting strict measures into these institutions, we should be careful so that we do not discourage them. We should protect them. We should not let a few incidents of people stealing from others or some people acting against the law to push us towards putting strict measures into these little organisations that are saving a lot of Kenyans. As Members, we have to be very careful so that we do not rush into overregulation to an extent of killing good things that are happening in this country. The country is growing at a very fast rate and a lot of things are coming up. I agree that we need regulation, but we should be careful that regulation will help develop good things in this country and not kill them. I totally agree with the provision on credit information sharing. Credit information sharing mechanism that already exists in banks should also be put in place to enable SACCOs to use the information in their operations. That is key. Even banks should use that information to either approve a loan or not. Our banks have so much relied on one’s financial muscles to approve loans instead of looking at one’s loan repayment abilities using credit history. In countries like the US, you can have no money, but with a good credit score, you can get a loan from a bank. The credit score shows that although you do not have a lot of money at the moment, your loan repayment ability is high. If we adopt this system in our country, our people will access credit easily. As we also do that, we should encourage the use of the savings in SACCOs as security for loans. Let us say you are a member of a SACCO like BUCOSO, which most of us are, can you use your savings there to get a loan in a bank because of your ability to repay or to save? We need to emphasise on the saving culture. We need to invest in this culture as a country. We need to teach our children the culture of saving from primary school and SACCOs are the best way of doing that. I started a dairy savings and cooperative society for dairy farmers and women, with their little milk, can now pay school fees for their children without any worries. They are able to save and borrow through the dairy farming. The boda sector is a very big enterprise in 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."
}