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{
    "id": 732110,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/732110/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 68,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Chanzu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 11,
        "legal_name": "Yusuf Kifuma Chanzu",
        "slug": "yusuf-chanzu"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution on the President’s Address. This is a mandatory and an annual requirement according to the Constitution. The President has to give such an Address to the nation annually and it is very important so that the Kenyan citizens are brought to speed with what is happening and what the Government is doing. The Speech was really one-sided. I do not know whether it was because of lack of adequate time that the President only talked about one side of the issues that he thought he had achieved. He did not address the aspects which give problems to Kenyans. I will start with the issue of reducing the wage bill. The most important thing is for the economy to grow. If the economy was growing, I do not think that would be a problem. If you compare the average earnings in a country like Kenya and the country which we want to emulate, the earnings are 10 times and these economies are growing. Again, when you excite the public that you will reduce salaries for Members of Parliament and then you compare the number of Members to the 700,000 civil servants, I do not know how much in terms of totals you would do. We have not addressed the problem that the Constitution has brought. As much as we are saying that the Constitution is progressive, we did not prepare how we will fund it. When we were working on the Constitution, we did not cost it. In the process of tug of war, which had been there for a long time between the Government and those who opposed the Government, the idea was to take away or reduce the power at the centre. In the process, we came up with commissions which are taking a lot of money. I do not think the amount of work the constitutional commissions do is commensurate with what they earn and even the numbers that we have in the commissions. When the President was the Minister for Finance, he came up with the idea that they wanted to get rid of the fuel guzzlers, namely, the big vehicles, which they did and brought the Volkswagen Passat. However, they did not clear the vehicles. Currently, every person in Government, including senior officers, their wives and children, have very expensive vehicles on the roads. The President needs to address that. We talk about the Members of Parliament, who only make mileage claims against what they have used to go to the constituencies. I see some of 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."
}