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"id": 1218122,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1218122/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Masinga, Independent",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Joshua Mwalyo",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for this opportunity that you have granted me to speak on the reintroduction of continuous registration of elderly persons in our society. First, I would like to congratulate Hon. Nzambia for this great Motion that he has brought to this House so that we can debate about our elderly people. It is very important to know that everybody in this House, whether young or old, will become elderly someday, and it is good to take care of ourselves when we reach that age. So, we need to put something in this Government. In fact, it should be a law that everybody who attains the age of 65 or 70 should automatically be enrolled to be receiving that stipend from the Government. That should be entrenched in our law. It should be in the Constitution. This is something which we ought not to belabour all the time through legislation, as we all come from families with elderly people. I am sure that everybody here has a mother, grandmother, grandfather and other elderly relatives who need to be taken care of by the Government, to which they have been paying taxes since they were young. In short, this is what we need to be doing as a country. In other countries, people are paid even when they are not old. For example, if you are unemployed in the United States of America, you get a cheque at the end of the month. You may even be between 25 to 30 years old. In Kenya, we are talking about people who are unable to work. Some of them have never been to school so as to be employed. We, therefore, need to take care of the elderly. The Bible says that when we mind our parents, our days on earth will be increased. Secondly, there is something that I realised when I became a Member of Parliament in 2017. I found out that the elderly were always sick, and they would always demand for money from me. So, I used the social kitty in the NG-CDF, and I started paying the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) fees for them. At the moment, I am paying annual charges for 1,040 elderly members who have been added to the scheme. That has helped me because they no longer come to me for money to go to hospital. I urge every Member of Parliament to look at the NG-CDF Act. There is a social kitty amount that you can use to pay for the elderly so that they are taken care of when they get sick. In my constituency, 1,040 elderly people go to hospital with their identity cards, and they are treated. That is what the Government should do. Last year, the Government registered those who receive a stipend of Ksh2,000 or Ksh4,000 for the NHIF, so that the Government pays for them and, at the same time, takes care of their health. It is very important for us to mind the elderly so that our days are prolonged, as the Bible says. As we take care of the elderly, we need to come up with a Bill to build homecare facilities. Many youths who have gone to the USA are trained in colleges on how to take care of the elderly in homecare facilities. We, therefore, need to task this Government to take care of the elderly and to also build homes for them. It is only the Catholic Church that has built a few homes to take care of the elderly. We need to sensitise the Government to build those homes. With those few remarks, I would like to donate my time to other Members to also contribute. Thank you. 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."
}