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{
    "id": 1183269,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1183269/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1948,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Millie Odhiambo-Mabona",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I will try to be brief so that other Members can also get an opportunity. While we were discussing here, I noticed that one of my friends on Facebook called Mutumishi Koroso is asking why the discussion on NG-CDF by Members of Parliament is very emotive. In fact, he has made a specific reference to Hon. Lilian Gogo on why she is emotive. The reason this is emotive is because we deal directly with members of the public unlike him who deals with people on Facebook. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I can cite a case in my constituency where people used to ask me to contribute to funerals and I would give very little. Sometimes I would contribute at most Ksh5,000 but usually it was Ksh3,000. At one point, I asked someone why I should be giving such little money that will not help, but I underwent a transformative situation that made me realise that little money to me means the whole world to somebody. I was told to visit a home where a woman had died a night before in Rusinga Island on Gumba Hills. When I went there, I found that the body had been there for a day covered with a net that was donated by UNICEF because they were not able to provide any preservative. They were not able to afford a coffin of Ksh3,000 and they were not able to take this body to the morgue. The woman had three children and the eldest of the only people surviving in the larger family was 14 years. Many of us do not understand the kind of situations that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. We are dealing with desperately poor people who cannot raise Ksh3,000 to bury their dead. We are dealing with people who cannot raise Ksh500 to buy unga and you want to argue with us on Facebook . Sometimes when posh Kenyans on Facebook find me in a good mood, I abuse them and when I am in a bad mood, I block them because they need to go back to the ground and discover what Kenya is all about. The NG-CDF has helped so many people and continues to do so. Hon. Temporary Speaker, the reason I interrupted my good friend, Hon. Florence, when she was speaking is that the challenge we have in relation to NG-CDF is a lot of misinformation. Many people think that as a Member of Parliament, you just go to your constituency and ask for Ksh1 million from the NG-CDF kitty. Nobody is going to give you any money. The NG-CDF has a board which is in Nairobi. That board is the one that actually sets up a committee which is passed in National Assembly and then it hires people who then work for NG-CDF. As Members, we may put in a word the way we influence appointment of principal secretaries and other people. That is normal in life. The NG-CDF is one of the best structures and best managed funds in the whole country. I want to encourage the organization called Tisa that sometimes those of us who come from civil societies, are very genuinely accused of being elitist because sometimes we are. I come from a civil society background and we need to understand that sometimes we are elitist and that is why people do not take us seriously. Go back home and understand how the NG-CDF is transforming lives. Right now, because the money for NG-CDF has delayed, there are so many people in our own constituencies who have dropped out of universities. There are some that we are forced right now to sponsor. There is a boy I have sponsored from a place called The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}