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{
    "id": 935816,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/935816/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 581,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. David ole Sankok",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13166,
        "legal_name": "David Ole Sankok",
        "slug": "david-ole-sankok"
    },
    "content": "You can imagine Nakumatt going under while owing small-scale business people a total of Kshs40 billion. That is not chicken change. That money in the pockets of Kenyans and circulating in our economy is big money. It will buy 26 million sacks of maize. But Nakumatt simply went under because a big business is swallowing small businesses - just like the proverbial biblical snake of Moses swallowing other small snakes from those wizards. A government is not judged on how it holds the hands of the stronger members of the society, but how it holds the hands of the weaker members of the society. The weaker members of the society in terms of business are SMEs, the small and medium enterprises, who are being swallowed by big retail shops. Somebody can come from out of this country and decide to rent shops across all our towns, the 47 county headquarters, and pay rent for six months, ask for supply of goods to be a supermarket. They are supplied and agreements are written to be paid after 120 days. They can be supplied with goods worth Kshs50 billion and after selling the goods, they disappear from the country. If we do not protect our small-scale traders, that money will disappear to a foreign land without us knowing. That is why we have to protect our SME enterprises. You supply goods to a supermarket, Naivas or Nakumatt or Shoprite for example. They sell those goods. If there is any Kenyan who has ever entered a supermarket and come out with a bottle of water on credit, let him stand up and be counted. They sell everything they have on a cash basis. What is wrong with us demanding that even if they have to have credit, then they pay their creditors within a certain timeframe; and that if they do not pay, there will be an authority to investigate and make sure that those small and medium enterprises are protected? We will protect them. We are in a man-eat-man society. That is for a fact. We are saying there is an economic meltdown in our country. Why is it not an economic meltdown when we are all pointing our fingers to the Government and saying that there is corruption? Even within ourselves and within the private sector, there is a lot of corruption. This is a Bill that is trying to fight corruption not only from the Government side, but also fight corruption between business people and business people. I do support the Bill 100 per cent, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, that we protect our small and medium enterprises who are suffering. Banks have gone under. Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) was a good initiative of the Government. Some very big retail shops have taken advantage of it. They have asked PWDs to supply goods. The PWDs take loans from banks but they are not paid. When they are not paid, they are auctioned. That is worse than shylocks. The Leader of the Majority Party did mention the issue of shylocks and the issue of"
}