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{
    "id": 941691,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/941691/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 607,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Kenya. Therefore, we almost became a banana state. What kept the economy moving is the informal sector, the so-called Jua Kali sector. It happened at the time that I was the Minister for Technical Training and Applied Technology. This is what gave birth to vocational and technical training institutes. If you do an economic survey, 40 per cent of the jobs were being created by small scale industries in the informal sector. Therefore, the unemployment crisis did not come out at that time. Of course, the bank rates went up because the people who were managing the banks were capitalists. The small scale investor, therefore, had no access to credit. What do we have today? It is the banks that are borrowing from the Government. They have crowed out the small scale enterprises and they are not in business. Consequently, the job opportunities that would have been buttressed by these informal sectors; the Jua Kali sector, will not be possible. That is why there is rise in unemployment to a point where it is almost becoming a social crisis that will only end in things that are unfathomed at this stage. Therefore, we must recognise, as a nation, that if we continue like this, we will be moving towards a social crisis and we must also recognise that this nation is moving towards a total shutdown. I do not want to go to the merits and demerits and I do not want to talk of who is right and who is wrong. I could have easily taken political capital out of this crisis but good sense of citizenry tells me that doing so will be a cowardly approach. What happens when you are faced with a gigantic element of issues that involve the survival of your own nation? What happens if we, as Senate, vote ‘no’ to this Motion? It will be status quo and what is the status quo ? Unemployment will continue soaring, debt crisis will continue rising and those that we have borrowed money from will come for their money. When they do so, the revenue streams and taxation measures will also be curbed down because people will not have money to pay. The economy will collapse and we will become a failed state or a banana state and it will take another 100 years to reengineer this country to normalcy. I have heard people say that devolution will suffer yet devolution has already suffered and will only continue suffering if no remedial actions are taken. Devolution has suffered because we took almost three or four weeks arguing about the Division of Revenue Act (DORA) and we only got a nominal increase from Kshs310 billion to Kshs316 billion. As Senators, we can heroically stand here and please our constituents by saying ‘no’ to this Motion, but we have to remember that we are only driving this nation to the bottomless pit. Mistakes have been made and we must accept when the Government comes with bended knees and says: ‘We made mistakes and we want to make amends’. This is what they have done. The explanation by the National Treasury must be acceptable. We cannot brush it away because of our politics. I have seen another trend here which is not comfortable, and it makes me worry; that when it comes to issues of national nature, we reduce them to party issues. These are not party issues; we are talking about the nation of Kenya and its survival. We are talking"
}