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{
    "id": 1120514,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1120514/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 344,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "all the 47 counties be in the marginalised category. Our country development measures have been wanting. There is a historical perspective and context to the issue of the Equalisation Fund. The whole idea around Equalisation Fund was perceived and mooted around the historical injustices that befell the northern part of Kenya, to be specific, and I do not make any apologies. While the rest of Kenya learnt about lockdowns in the pandemic, from 1902, Northern Kenya has been under lockdown, through a colonial legislation that did not allow people from Northern Kenya to access the rest of Kenya. I can go on and give specifics. That historical injustice is what the Constitution of Kenya 2010 tried to fix by ensuring that a definition of marginalisation is introduced in articles of the Constitution. There are so many characteristics. I do not understand why we are going back to what characterises marginalisation. In the initial 14 counties, there was poor income levels, remoteness, economic deprivation, poor health infrastructure, low level of school enrolment, absence of tarmac roads – for example in Wajir, which got the first tarmac under devolution – and high mortality rates. A few years ago, there was an international survey under the question: ‘Where is the most dangerous place to give birth for women on earth?’ Guess where the answer was – somewhere in Northern Kenya, specifically Mandera County. These are the issues that our Constitution was trying to fix. We can try to please and apologise about everything, but truth must be told on the Floor of this House, that inequalities in our country have a historical face and a definition of that must not be wished away. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I know it has been said that everybody is poor; including people in Korogocho and Kiamaiko who are our relatives. They are deprived, but what if our implementation of the Equalisation Fund and approval would bring equal opportunities at the grassroots? Perhaps this incessant and crazy urban migration that makes people camp on top of sewers will be arrested. The Equalization Fund will arrest urban migration that makes people in Kariobangi have flying toilets. There is a reason why people move from rural poverty to urban poverty. I am familiar with the assessments done and continue to be done in the humanitarian sector that have beyond reasonable doubt and have basis in science. They have determined that urban poverty is better because you have access to tarmac roads, and energy, which is absent in marginalised areas. We have no access to even the basic 2G communication. You live and inhabit a place where a woman giving birth has zero chances of survival. This is because in every direction, it is 200 kilometres to the nearest health facility, if you are bleeding. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, let us not compare oranges to apples. Let us not say that because there are certain stakeholders that have raised concerns--- Of course, there are stakeholders raining concerns about every aspect of our economic, resource allocation and distribution. There are stakeholders who have an issue with even devolution itself. There are people who have an issue with monies going to the county, but we cannot purport to say that because Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has issues or the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) has some issues, we should be suspended, arrested and"
}