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{
    "id": 798307,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/798307/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 189,
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    "content": "friend that is your opinion or position. I respect it, but let us remain committed to our main course”. We have wananchi to serve in this country and a country to develop. We will fail, unless we unite. Let us not spend our energy on anything else.The President and his Government, with the cooperation of the former Prime Minister, have undertaken to support this course. I wish this House would start going round this country and holding social functions. Let us go into the heartland of Luo, Kikuyu, Giriama and every part of Kenya, so that they see the faces of Kenya that they cannot associate with a particular tribe or party. I feel that is when Kenya will be on the path to major development. Therefore, let us unite for the good our country and for service to God. The President also touched on corruption. We want to develop this country. Let me give an example of when a patient goes to hospital. If the patient is bleeding, the first thing to be done is to stop the bleeding. Corruption is nothing else, but the country bleeding and its resources ending up into holes that are not productive to the country. When we are told that as much as 30 per cent of our budget ends up into some pockets, I do not know if some people sit down to imagine what colossal sums of money that is and what resources it entails. Out of a one trillion budget, a sum of Kshs300 billion goes to peoples’ pockets. We can all imagine what a billion can do. It is high time that Kenyans realised that to be poor is not a question of just amassing money or the amount of money you have, it is a question of what you wanted to have minus what you have. Most of us suffer from that poverty. Africa is endowed with everything that God could give it; good climate and natural resources. There are enormous things we could be doing to develop this country without corruption. With commitment, the Port of Mombasa could run the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country if we sat down seriously. It is a shame that we should we should be importing food. There was one time in the early 1970s when this country was forced to look for food and yellow maize came. I remember the late President Mzee Kenyatta stood up and assured the people that they would never again eat the maize. As history would have it, he called upon the Government where some people sat especially, the Provincial Commissioner who was in the Rift Valley province. They came up with the Guaranteed Minimum Returns (GMR). The following year the Standard Newspaper ran a front page saying: “Kenya has aBumper Harvest.” This is the kind of action we want. We want a country that makes a decision and feels proud about it because whatever it takes; we should make our maize, potato and rice farmers produce more. Sometimes, we import food from china. We wonder how they are to feed 1.3 billion people and then export the surplus to us. We must come out of this. I believe that is what the President feels and is what he expressed in his Address. Corruption will not just go. People are not created to obey laws. When God made the Ten Commandments, He knew that people would not obey them. He therefore put a serious punishment. He said that people would burn forever. That is what makes people to keep obeying the Ten Commandments for those who do so. It is because our God, the creator knew that human beings would not just obey laws. Therefore, I propose that stern action should be taken against corrupt people to end this vice. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}