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{
    "id": 836648,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/836648/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 192,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I was going to come back to it but thank you for the encouragement that I have not digressed. We have been missing our targets in terms of revenue collection. We have been looking at the list of things and people to be taxed. The latest is taxation on petroleum products which is having a ripple effect on everything. There are sectors that we have not taken advantage of. One of them is the tourism sector, as Sen. Olekina has eloquently articulated in this Motion. I could not help but wonder about the USD400 billion or 5.6 per cent deficit that we have. If we take advantage by diversifying and showing that our economic sectors such as tourism are well developed and take advantage of the potential unleashed, we would not be taxing the already overtaxed population of this country. As you know, taxation affects the vulnerable more severely than anybody else because they do not have the cushioning power to cushion themselves against taxation, not because they do not have any savings but because it affects even their own lives and livelihoods. I will come back to that. Tourism is one sector of our macro-economy. I have had the privilege of working in this sector and I know the challenge is not the products because we have one the most wonderful products and that has been articulated by everybody. We have the best safaris in the world; the only safaris in the wild because if you go anywhere else, they are not wild. Kruger National Park, for instance, is just one big zoo but the real safaris in the world are in Maasai Mara, Isiolo, Samburu, Kakamega Forest and the Great Rift Valley. The real safaris are in Kenya and nowhere else. That one, I have no doubt about. The best beaches are here too. However, the gap is that this country has not invested in the diversification that Sen. (Dr.) Zani, Sen. Olekina and Sen. Sakaja have mentioned. The infrastructure and circuits – tourism is about circuits – that should take people to the great big North where I come from does not exist. The tourism for our country has been placed to be accessed by only the super-rich. This is because it is only those who can fly to destinations and those that can land inside these exotic places that are able to access these products. Madam Temporary Speaker, Sir, today’s tourism, as you have been told, is when the young people want to interact with nature. They do not need to sit in cages which are the tourist vans. They want to interact with nature, scale mountains and rocks and find out what it is to interact with nature. As a country, we have not invested in tourism where 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."
}