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{
    "id": 1200127,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1200127/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Starehe, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Maina",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13283,
        "legal_name": "Charles Kanyi Njagua",
        "slug": "charles-kanyi-njagua"
    },
    "content": "About housing, I am an MP for a constituency that has a very huge population living in the slums. These people are optimistic that the affordable housing plan that the Government promised will help them redeem their livelihoods by providing decent housing. Their major concern is that maybe the structures that are going to be used in the schemes may not address the real issues facing the people. We have seen other housing plans being brought on board, where people who benefit are not slum dwellers. These houses have been brought up and sold out to other people who are not the residents of these areas. For us, it becomes a scheme to evacuate some people and develop these places to be sold to people who are not needy. That is a concern that my constituents have raised. We want participation and involvement by the locals. The real champions of these schemes should be the structure owners – the landladies and landlords in the slums – who should be at the forefront of implementation of the schemes. Yet most often than not, when we have these upgrades, these people are taken for granted and are vacated from their lands. When the houses are developed beautifully, they are sold to people with more money. That is one issue that people have raised, and we need to address it. We cannot displace people and bring in other people who are not our constituents. On the matter at hand about the Committee on Appointments, I urge that Committee to vet the nominees wisely. We are in a new economic dispensation. We have never tried this bottom-up model before. It is at its initial stages. We need people who understand it very well to be its drivers. These are the people who are able to articulate issues and meet the expectations that people on the ground have. They are so hopeful about this whole bottom-up model. But if we do not have the right drivers of this model, it might just turn out to be something else that will not work."
}