Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 998522,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/998522/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1472,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kieni, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kanini Kega",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1813,
        "legal_name": "James Mathenge Kanini Kega",
        "slug": "james-mathenge-kanini-kega"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity. From the outset, I thank the Committee for a job well-done. I support this Motion. I also thank the Departmental Committee on Trade, Industry and Cooperatives for the good work that they did under very extreme conditions to come up with the various recommendations. I put forward those recommendations to the Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC) and they were very supportive. It remained as such. They were very supportive and said that we have to live within our means. We are living in very difficult times during the COVID-19 era. Many businesses have been interrupted and imports have been curtailed. We have learnt a lot. We have learnt that the country can be closed off from the outside world. Most of the things that we rely on coming from China, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) have been curtailed. We found ourselves in a very awkward situation. Every challenge presents an opportunity. This is an opportunity that our country should seize and utilise. We need to buy and build Kenya. It is very unfortunate that even the masks that most of us are wearing today are imported. Those are very simple things that could be made locally. We are happy and proud that one of the agencies that we support, namely, Rivatex, has come up and is able to produce masks en masse for our people. During this period, we have been told that the Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) that we have been importing from China are substandard. Those PPEs are produced locally and at half the price. The makers of this budget and especially the National Treasury should be alive to the fact that we need to build our country and support our industries. It should be projected in our budget. The budget does not strongly support industries and what we have been speaking about. Industry is one of the Big Four Agenda but unfortunately, it is not commensurate with the budget allocation. I just want to give a typical example. In the Supplementary I Budget, this House allocated Kshs2.6 billion for Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Dongo Kundu in Mombasa and also SEZ in Naivasha. In Supplementary II, the entire allocation was withdrawn. The unfortunate thing is that the money had been sent to the various Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs) and they had commenced the procurement process. I do not even know the law that the National Treasury used to recall the money. It speaks volumes, to say the least, about the National Treasury. There is no way this Parliament can appropriate money, the National Treasury disburses the same amount and then recalls it when procurement is already in place. We have about 61 missions abroad in China, the UK, USA and in African countries. I want to bring to the attention of the House that in all the 61 missions that we have abroad, we only have four trade attachés. We have no trade attaché in China, London or even in our African countries. We have no trade attaché in Tanzania, and yet those are some of our biggest trading partners. Every The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}