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{
    "id": 1084358,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1084358/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 115,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mbeere South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Geoffrey Muturi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13431,
        "legal_name": "Geoffrey Kingagi Muturi",
        "slug": "geoffrey-kingagi-muturi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I want to thank the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government for taking time to provide the statement. I also want to admit that I did interact with him and the Principal Secretary during the Committee hearings. There has been a bit of canvassing around the issue. I want to thank the Chair of the Committee because he has been very graceful to facilitate the kind of discussion around this issue. Allow me to put a few facts straight. One, the TARDA land in Mbeere South totals 66,000 acres. It is colossal. It is kilometres upon kilometres of land. The piece of land in question is more than 6,000 acres and it touches Masinga Dam. A distance of about 40 kilometres is the coastline of Masinga Dam, and it is in my constituency. The truth of the matter is that nobody in my constituency entered TARDA land. TARDA is trying to claim this area for the first time. The people of Makima have been living there since the dam was constructed in 1978, more than 40 years ago. In fact, the people of Masinga have seven villages: Mbinguni, Twanyoni, Muvivo, Masaikros, Uthunguni, Vugamboo and Mwanyani. For every village, there is a primary school. And in the same land, there is a secondary school. Those people did not settle on the land yesterday. Those are government schools where we have allocated CDF money to build classrooms. This is the area that the Cabinet Secretary now claims he was bound by a court order. TARDA is a public body. They went to court to procure a court order. So, it is the Government using one of its arms to procure a court and then claim they are bound by the court order so that they cannot protect the citizens. I do not know how it got to a point where the Member of Parliament is now called upon to defend citizens from their own Government; people who are being paid through taxes. People did not move into TARDA land. TARDA moved into peoples’ land, 34 years after the construction of the dam and after TARDA was legally in place. Those title 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."
}