Thursday, 9th November 2023

You may be seated. Order, Hon. Members.

Your Excellency, the Hon. (Dr) William Samoei Ruto, CGH, President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander-in- Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces; the Rt. Hon. Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Moses Wetangula, E.G.H, MP; Hon. Members of Parliament, Article 132 (1) of the Constitution of Kenya requires the President to address the Special Sitting of

Consequently, pursuant to Standing Order No.25(i) and (ii) of the Senate, I gave notice of today's Special Sitting to the Hon. Senators by Gazette Notice No.14716, which was published in the Kenya Gazette on Friday, 3rd November 2023.

Accordingly, Hon. Members, this Special Sitting is properly convened. I thank you.

Your Excellency, Hon. (Dr) William Samoei Ruto, C.G.H, President of the Republic of Kenya and the Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces; the Rt. Hon. Amason King, E.G.H, MP, Hon. Speaker of the Senate; Hon. Members of Parliament; Members of the Diplomatic Corps; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen, Article 132 (1) (b) of the Constitution of Kenya requires the President to address the nation once every year and at any other time.

Further, Article 132 (1) (c) requires the President to once every year, report, in an address to the nation on measures taken and progress achieved in the realization of our national values.

Additionally, Article 132 (1) (c) (iii) of the Constitution provides that the President shall submit a report for debate to the National Assembly, on the progress made in fulfilling the international obligations of the Republic.

In this regard, Hon. Members, by way of a Message to the House dated 26th September 2023, His Excellency the President conveyed his desire to address a Joint Sitting of the Houses of Parliament today, 9th November 2023.

Therefore, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 22 of the National Assembly Standing Orders and by Gazette Notice No.14715, which was published in the Kenya Gazette on 3rd November 2023, I gave notice of this Special Sitting of Parliament to the Members of the National Assembly.

Accordingly, Hon. Members, this Special Sitting is properly convened. Your Excellency, in the custom of Parliament, we recognise invited guests seated in our galleries. I, therefore, wish to recognise the following guests who are seated in the Speaker's Row:

We are similarly pleased to host the former Vice-President of the Republic, Hon. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, E.G.H, who is also the Co-Chair of the National Dialogue Committee. We are also honoured to have in our midst the immediate former Speakers of the Houses of Parliament, the Hon. Justin B.N. Muturi, E.G.H, the Attorney-General of the Republic of Kenya; and the Hon. Kenneth Lusaka, E.G.H, the Governor for Bungoma County.

Thank you very much, Hon. Members.

I rise before this distinguished assembly of the democratically elected representatives of the people of Kenya to discharge my constitutional functions under Article 132 (1) (c) . The occasion requires me to give an account to the people of Kenya, the measures taken by their government, under my leadership, and to give full expression and effect to the soul of our constitutional dispensation by implementing the national values and principles of governance set out in Article 10 of our Constitution.

I have a substantial report to give on the progress made in fulfilling this solemn covenant, and that the journey of transforming Kenya for the benefit of present and future generations is fully underway. Its positive effects have also begun to bear fruit across many sectors of our national endeavour from the grassroots to the Capital of Nairobi.

Citizen freedoms and fundamental rights lie at the heart of enterprise and democracy. Accordingly, our governance system must be fit for purpose; able to protect people and their belongings, safeguard freedom, facilitate democracy and promote market efficiency. To do this, law enforcement must be robust; judicial integrity, efficiency and independence absolute; and the right to the protection of the law non-negotiable and impartial. Therefore, our Police Service and all other actors in the justice, law and order chain – including the judiciary – must be professional, independent, impartial, effective and inspired by national values and principles of governance. In keeping with our promise to the people of Kenya, I signed important instruments on my first day on duty. Among them, the delayed appointment of six judges to the Court of Appeal as recommended by the Judicial Service Commission.

We rolled out a countrywide farmer registration and fertiliser subsidy programme that has made available 5.5 million bags to farmers across Kenya. We have progressively reduced the cost of fertiliser from Ksh6,500 to Ksh2,500, increased maize acreage under production by an extra 200,000 acres and enhanced maize production by an additional 18 million bags this year. As a result of these interventions, today a 2kg packet of maize flour is selling at a low of Ksh145 and a high of Kshs175 depending on the brand you buy down from Ksh250 a few months ago. The famous gorogoro of maize is selling at between Ksh60 and Ksh75. Hon. Members, you know how much it cost a few months ago. We have also established 22 new fish landing sites in nine counties in the Nyanza and Coast regions. We have funded and organised beach management units into cooperatives, set up two hatcheries in Kabonyo in Kisumu County, and in Shimoni in Kwale County. We are in the process of completing Liwatoni fish processing plant in Mombasa by end of next month and Shimoni Fish Port by the end of next year, again, to bring our blue economy resources into the realm of food production.

Additionally, we are enhancing dairy productivity for better farmer returns. The Government, working closely with milk processors, and I had a long conversation with them in Nakuru… We are mapping the country to ensure coolers are supplied where needed. Soon, farmers will be paid based on milk quality ths boosting incomes. They can also enjoy global market access. Our reforms in the coffee sector are bearing fruit, with our farmers set to earn four times advance pay for their crop, from a low of Ksh20 to Ksh80, following the allocation of Ksh4 billion from the Coffee Cherry Fund that was ably facilitated by this House. Coffee reforms and regulations will give farmers the necessary representation and weight at the National Coffee Auction. It is my intention to make sure that the auction operates with farmers at the centre of it. These measures are expected to aid ongoing efforts, including expanding production to new counties and double coffee output in the next four years. The Government of Kenya is currently restructuring public sugar mills, expediting the leasing of five companies for rehabilitation and expansion to boost industry competitiveness before the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) sugar safeguards expire. The objective includes creating a competitive sector, raising farmer incomes and enhancing productivity. This House agreed with my Cabinet that we waive Ksh117 billion non-performing debt for Government-owned sugar factories for which I am grateful to this House.

Our efforts to stabilise the situation have yielded such progress that next month, in December, we will be able to settle the first $300 million or Ksh500 billion instalment of the $2 billion Eurobond debt that falls due next year.

responsible to respond to him. Consequently, I hereby direct the Ministry of Cooperatives and MSMEs to expeditiously engage Mr Kenga. I will give you his telephone number.

Hon. Members, you all know that we get mortgages at 3 per cent. The people in the social space also deserve to get 3 per cent. Those in the affordable housing space, will get at 6 per cent and 9 per cent for the market rate category.

The affordable housing programme has received tremendous support from county governments across Kenya, and I thank Governors for their partnership. The Chairperson of the Council of Governors is here, and through her, all Governors have worked with us to make sure that this programme becomes a reality.

The construction of 46,792 units in various parts of the country is already underway, while another 40,000 are ready to commence construction in a couple of weeks. Fifty thousand Kenyans who were previously unemployed, are now working and are engaged directly and indirectly in this enterprise, and the numbers will significantly increase as the project move into the next phase, and as we roll out many more units. A total of 746,795 housing units are in the pipeline as I talk to you, undergoing various stages of delivery.

More jobs are being created with the formalisation of the Jua-Kali clusters, providing products like doors, hinges and windows. This morning, as I visited one of the sites that I launched construction in March, with the Member of Parliament for Ruiru, I was amazed that a site that was flat in March, today, has eight 11-block units almost at 60 per cent completion. I also met the Jua-Kali cluster for Ruiru, and they had been given a contract of Ksh140 million to supply doors and windows.

the capacity to effectively deliver learning and teaching at junior school levels. Hon. Omboko Milemba can confirm this. With changes to the entry requirements for Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs), admission has increased by 300 per cent to now 20,456 trainees. I was privileged to open the Kwale TTC, which had less than 100 students a few months ago. When I went there, the Principal told me that the numbers had increased four times.

At the tertiary level, the working party recommended an overhaul of the existing education funding framework to a valuable scholarship and loan model to address the financing gap, which denied many Kenyans the opportunity to pursue tertiary education in our universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) centres. It also created many complications in our universities and institutions of higher learning. By last year, our universities had accumulated debts of close to Ksh60 billion. I sat down with all the vice- chancellors of our 41 public universities, and we came up with a proposal that we are now implementing. The new model for financial support is student-centred and deploys a rigorous and impartial means testing instrument to establish the level of need of every student, which then becomes the primary consideration in allocating scholarships and loans.

To fully democratise our education system and make higher education accessible and affordable to all, we have also chartered the Open University of Kenya following requisite Cabinet and parliamentary approvals. I want to thank this House for expediting the Open University of Kenya Charter that had been in the works for the last 10 years. I also want to announce to you that the first 1,000 students will report next month.

In the course of consulting Kenyans from all walks of life during the formulation of the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda, the fundamental contribution of health to citizen wellbeing and the role of costs in driving up poverty were identified as chronic. The implications are very clear, and we cannot afford to delay the delivery of universal healthcare anymore. Consequently, we have instituted radical reforms in the provision of healthcare services in Kenya, including the enactment of four new laws that will anchor the implementation of this bottom-up approach to healthcare. I am tremendously grateful to this House and Hon. Members for enacting the Primary Health Care Act, the New Social Health Insurance Act, the Digital Health Act, and the Facility Improvement Financing Act. Hon. Members, these laws, will usher in and guarantee a new era in the provision of healthcare by covering all essential services from preventive, promotive, curative, palliative, and rehabilitative services, thus guaranteeing every Kenyan access to comprehensive and quality healthcare.

Under Afya Nyumbani, we have scaled up our investment in the healthcare workforce by employing 20,000 new healthcare workers. We have also deployed 8,429 workers whose contracts had lapsed and enrolled 3,394 interns across the country to increase the availability of human capital in our public health sector. Working with county governments – again I am grateful to them – we have taken measures to resolve the perennial challenge of human resource management in the health sector which has been the cause of many strikes. We have established the Kenya Health Human Resource Advisory Council (KHHRAC) which will be a trusted mediator between government at both the levels and our health sector workers.

Further, under the Afya Nyumbani model, we identified preventive care as an essential pillar of healthcare service delivery because it enables Kenyans to manage their conditions early enough before they cause serious harm to their wellbeing and productivity. Community health promotion is our bottom-up intervention to deliver preventive and promotive health solutions at the grassroots. Community Health Promoters (CHPs) will visit Kenyans at their homes, provide basic diagnoses for common conditions, and refer cases to appropriate medical facilities. Together with all 47 counties, we have deployed 100,000 community health promoters fully equipped with the necessary kits and an electronic community health information system.

In the last one month, CHPs have attended to 1.2 million households.

To consolidate this proposition, we have directed that 80 per cent of future recruits to all our national security services from the military, police, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and all other security agencies will be from among the well- trained, talented and committed young men and women who have undergone training at NYS.

electoral disagreements. This is because we have a robust democracy, which we are very proud of. Such pressure can disrupt lives and livelihoods and undermine our economy. Thankfully, Kenyans always find the moral strength and political imagination to reach across the political divide and engage in dialogue in the spirit of goodwill, fraternity, commitment to national interests and the welfare of the nation. Hon. Members, it would be remiss of me not to mention the ongoing bipartisan process of national dialogue that has enabled our leaders to find common ground on many issues, whose resolution will accelerate our transformation, deepen our democracy and entrench national unity. Specifically, I thank the two Co-Chairpersons, my good brother, Hon. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, our former Vice-President, and the Leader of the Majority Party in the House, Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah, for doing a wonderful job. Congratulations gentlemen. I salute the courage and patriotism of my fellow leaders who have embraced national dialogue and encouraged all of us to keep up the noble work of bringing Kenyans together. There is so much to report about the progress we have made in serving the people of Kenya and transforming our economy. I have only provided a summarised highlight of the most salient instances of transformational progress in my address. It is my pleasant duty to hand to the Speakers of the Houses of Parliament the three Reports in full as follows:

Hon. Members, please, be upstanding.

Your Excellency the President, Rt. Hon. Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Members, we have come to the conclusion of the business of the day, and it is now time to adjourn

The Senate stands adjourned until Tuesday, 14th November 2023 at 2.30 p.m. at the Senate Chamber.

Hon. Members, remain upstanding.

Hon. Members, the National Assembly now stands adjourned until Tuesday, 14th November 2023 at 2.30 p.m.

Your Excellency the President, I also take this opportunity to invite all Members and our guests to a reception at the Parliament courtyard. I also request all Members and our guests to remain standing in your places until the procession of His Excellency the President and the Speakers leaves the Chamber.

Thank you.

Published by Clerk of the National Assembly Parliament Buildings Nairobi