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{
    "id": 846721,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/846721/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 248,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tongaren, Ford Kenya",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": "You cannot plug a hole of Kshs 500 billion with a Finance Bill of 30 billion. This is an example of an extractive administration. It is an administration that extracts the last blood from its people. I would recommend to people to read the book Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, because we have reached a point where we are extracting the last drop of blood from Kenyans to plug a hole that we possibly cannot plug. Then a few of us are misled in visiting retired President Moi instead of visiting retired President Kibaki who built this economy. Look at the Robin Hood tax. Even what it is supposed to be used for is questionable. That it will be used for universal healthcare (UHC) yet we know very well that we are facing a problem in the health sector in the sense that GAVI is going to withdraw its support to vaccinations. There is going to be withdrawal of support to ARVs in this country. If there is going to be anything about Robin Hood tax, it should be directed to those specific areas, not an amorphous thing like UHC through the NHIF. On the issue of interest rate caps, many people are uncomfortable with it, but the reasons the banks want it removed are not genuine. The problem, as many have said, is because we as a Government are borrowing so much money from the domestic market and the banks prefer to lend to the Government rather than to the mwananchi. The SMEs are therefore defaulting on their loans because the same Government that is borrowing from the domestic market is not paying its contractors and is not giving the county governments money on time, so the county governments are also not paying their contractors. That is how you get increased non-performing loans in banks. It is a vicious cycle that we have created. We have borrowed so much money, and I am surprised we are actually borrowing some more to extend the SGR from Naivasha to Kisumu. We are still fighting on how to pay what we have borrowed. I dare say if we do not watch out, very soon we will be so mortgaged to China that they will just come and take over the country, like they have done with some port somewhere in Sri Lanka and they have done to Djibouti. This mad craze of borrowing and saying that we will be able to pay yet we know the pain we are inflicting on Kenyans by way of taxing and taxing and taxing and increasing costs is bad. Take the housing levy. It is an idea I would call communist-socialist idea that we are trying to implement in a capitalist State. It cannot work. Not in a capitalist State. There is no way you are going to force somebody to pay money for a house that he might never own. What interest rates are they going to be paid when they retire and they want to get back their money or they want to transfer it to their children? I think what we face here is a situation where we are in panic. We have borrowed too much and we do not know what to do. Therefore, we are running in one spot. So we come up with this Finance Bill because we are sadists and we like inflicting pain on Kenyans by taxing The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}