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{
    "id": 896705,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/896705/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 285,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kigumo, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Wangari Mwaniki",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13369,
        "legal_name": "Ruth W Mwaniki",
        "slug": "ruth-w-mwaniki"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to support the State of the Nation Address by His Excellency the President. I have had the privilege to work as a civil servant in this country under the leadership of Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and the former President Kibaki, and briefly under the second President of the Republic of Kenya. We are all privileged to serve as Members of Parliament. We sit here and we say we would need the President to do this or that. We also get asked the same things by our constituents, but until and unless there is an enabling environment for proper implementation of those things that we request, it is not possible for the President to do them. So, it is very important as a House because we are also leaders and we get asked those things where we come from. At times you struggle to want to do them but you are not enabled by certain parameters. The President goes through the same situation and frustration at times. I was just listening to a lot of our speakers here. They supported the President’s Speech. They talked about how he needs to, perhaps, promote export business. I had the privilege to serve as the head of international trade before I served as a Member of Parliament. The SGR that we have just been talking about has been built up to Naivasha. In the majority of the export business that the country enjoyed, 50 per cent of it was the corridor of Mombasa –Kampala –Kigali- Bujumbura. We have lost 95 per cent of that business just because there is the preferred corridor with is the Dar es Salaam Port. You may not understand the economics behind the SGR but unless it is completed, we will never harness even the little money that we spent of Kshs500 billion. We will never be able to recoup it if we cannot complete the SGR so that we are able to transit the goods and services to the Great Lakes Region. Majority of the things that the President wants to do in the manufacturing sector, for example – and I am speaking from a point of knowledge –cannot be sold elsewhere except in the East African Community and the Great Lakes Region. Even if we start manufacturing, we must allow and prepare the market where those things will go. I rise to support the President. I can only understand from where he sits what he goes through because I worked under him and I saw the strain he works under. This is a President that is humble, loves his country and is dependable. He has inspired hope against a lot of tragedies. Let us remember that when he was appointed President, there was the Westgate matter. Today, we have security. He has done a lot to promote the name of this country in the international arena and to allow peace to be in this country. I am one who believes in peace. But as scholars say, peace cannot be attained without unity, and unity cannot be attained without inclusivity. So, Mr. President I support you. We support you in the Building Bridges Initiatives. We do not want our members of the Civil Service to be intimidated by the Members of Parliament just because they have no privilege to respond. Let us not use politics to intimidate our Principal Secretaries and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations as they do their work just because from where you sit, you do not agree with what they are doing. We need a country that we can look up to. I support what my sister said. If we finish this country because of politics, where will we run to? So, let us lower our personal interest for the nation and for the future of this country. I beg to support."
}