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{
    "id": 1201059,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1201059/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 139,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Thangw’a",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is something that I liked in the President’s Address which I would want to put across. I would like to inform this House that in 1913 the ‘white settlers’ or the British colonialists called for a meeting to investigate why the Kenyans had refused to attend to the farms of these ‘white settlers’. After they did this investigation, they realised that people did not feel like appearing in front of the ‘white settlers’ because the working environment was not a good environment. Despite them getting their pay, they were being harassed and intimidated, so they refused to work. Why am I giving you this story? That is the first commission of enquiry in this country where they checked to find the solution to a problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in our campaigns, we promised our people that a commission of enquiry would be formed to look into the issue of State capture. I did not find that in the President’s Address. However, I believe it is something we can deliberate on as a Senate and ask the President to form this kind of commission so that we can investigate. This is so that even Senators do not always complain here that the executive was not appearing in front of this Senate. The Cabinet Secretaries could not honor summons. We, therefore, would want to find out what happened. When I was growing up, I used to watch a program called Vioja Mahakamani . When the judge of Vioja Mahakamani was rendering a sentence, she used to say; “ Ili iwefunzo kwake na wengine” meaning, for it to be a lesson to the person who is being sentenced and the others. So that it serves as a lesson to the incoming Cabinet Secretaries and other Government officers, we need to form that commission of enquiry on matters State capture. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the President talked about the Judiciary. We agree with him that if you do not fund the Judiciary, they are going to be a puppet of the Executive. If you are a victim to a government that is rogue, the Judiciary is your best friend. So, we should empower the Judiciary by giving them resources. There was an issue here that was raised in the previous debates, the issue of agriculture. I am happy that the President is putting a lot in the agriculture sector because this is the backbone of our economy. There was an issue of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). I would want to weigh in and ask this House to at least do a little bit of research before opposing the issue of GMOs. My grandfather who died before I was born, was a dealer in GMO products. I believe even today, in every village, there is a man or a woman who is dealing in GMOs in this country. What I am talking about is that there is an old man somewhere who takes an Avocado tree, splits it in the middle then brings another branch from another Mango or Avocado tree and puts them together. That is genetically modifying that Avocado tree. That is what we call grafting. Therefore, before we fight this idea, we should do a little bit of research and get to understand what it means when the Cabinet approves the GMO or biotech crops. I heard a Senator saying that GMO brings cancer. Nobody knows. If at all there is evidence, we are willing to adopt that evidence. A country called Zambia grows cotton that is a GMO crop. Swaziland and Zimbabwe, also grow the same. I believe no one would get cancer by wearing a T-shirt that has already been developed from cotton that is a GMO kind of crop."
}