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{
    "id": 1195431,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1195431/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 275,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Githunguri, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gathoni Wamuchomba",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Allow me to, first, register my concern that in as much as we are all willing to contribute to this debate, I sympathize with the new Members. There seems to be a system that is not working very well in terms of prioritizing who is going to speak. Some of us have been here even before the Hon. Speaker walked into this House. We logged in our cards and have been waiting from 1.45 p.m to now. I can hear, with the spirit in the House, there must be a problem with the logging system. Since I would want my sisters and brothers who have joined this House to have opportunity to defend and fight for the people who elected them, I would request that the management of the House looks into the issue. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I have been sitting here for those many hours because I wanted to make my contribution to the Motion on remuneration of village elders, sponsored by Hon. Mwengi Mutuse. He has done a wonderful job to sponsor and present this Motion to this House. To my dissatisfaction and frustration, this Motion is not new in this House. It was tabled and debated in this House during the 12th Parliament. Unfortunately, nothing has been done despite the fact that we passed it then. Village elders are our senior fathers and citizens. They are our brothers and sisters who work tirelessly to keep order in the villages. They are the people who report cases of crime to the police. They are the ones who contain domestic issues. They are also the ones who report accidents and disasters like floods yet they are not recognized positively in terms of payments and facilitation. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I do not know whether we are supposed to be lobbying the House to amend the National Government and Coordination Act of 2013 or we are going to be pushing for the Amendment of the National Social Protection Act. This is because the majority of village elders are retired people. Some of them were public servants who deserve to be paid for the effort they put in the building of this country’s economy. The National Social Protection Act has been very discriminative because we have seen unemployed youths getting absorbed and being engaged for payment under the Kazi kwa Vijana Programme. If we can afford to pay our young people under Kazi kwa Vijana, we should be able to pay our village elders. I do not want to say that Kazi kwa Vijana did not give any input in terms of good work but in equal measure, village elders also do a lot of good work. Since we have been able to allocate money to Kazi kwa vijana for a long time, we should also work hard to make sure that we allocate funds though the Social Protection Act or the National Government Coordination Act 2013 to accommodate the village elders’ payments. I am an elected Member from Githunguri Constituency in Kiambu County. If there is a group of people who really assisted me during the campaign period, and also informed me on a few areas that I needed to concentrate on as their leader, it is the village elders. If there are people that the Government has used for the last 10 years in terms of maintaining order in the villages, they are village elders. It is sad that they have neither uniform nor mobile phone airtime allowance. Some of them go hungry the whole day as they work for the Government but they do not have any way of recognition. It is time we came up with a legislative proposal that is 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."
}