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{
    "id": 1224596,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1224596/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 392,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill talks about the right to be free from hunger and to provide adequate food and in adequate quantities to the people. It is trying to say that there are social and economic rights within the Constitution. It is forcing those rights to be enforced in our counties. Right now, before the rains started, people were going hungry. You would find many children unable to attend school because there was no food. For example, pictures have been circulating in some of our social media platforms in Tana River County. You will find that a child has struggled to go to school, walking all the way there. When they reach school, that child is found sleeping on the floor. During the lunch break, that child is not able to play or be effective in communicating with the other children. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill is making it compulsory for county governments, not just in Tana River County, but in all the 47 counties, that in their planning, they will give effect to social and economic rights, which include the right to have food. Going forward, governors will be forced to plan so that the population they are leading are not people dying of starvation. In this Bill, there is a requirement that the national and county governments work together, so that they can deal with actual needs of the people. While we have hunger, the priorities that have occupied certain counties are not reflecting of the hunger situation. Many of them have plans to construct new buildings, not grain storages or water pans where they can tap water. They are planning to buy new cars for the governors who have just been elected. They will find money for new housing or completion for Speakers and governors who have not built their houses. They will find money for allowances, to travel trips for training and going abroad. They will take big, nice pictures of county delegations visiting all over the world, but the planning is not capturing the fact that there is hunger. This Bill will force county governments, county assemblies and the treasuries in those counties to make sure that they are planning for the basic necessity, the dignity of the human person. The Kenyan person will now have an opportunity to truly say that independence has come. This Bill is intent on giving social security and social assistance to the lowest of the low. Under this Bill, national Government and county governments will be forced to look into their budgets and see how they can support people who are at the bottom of the ladder. This Bill is saying that county governments must come up with creative ways. There should be no people sleeping hungry in your places. In the European countries where they have social democracy and their governments are in power, you will find that they create soup kitchens in the local authorities, where people are allowed to go and eat something. You do not sleep hungry in that country. They create areas where if life has beaten or battered you to the point that you have lost all, you can run to a place that is a shelter where you can organize yourself so that you do not die. They are not very good, but you can organize yourself in time for you to go back to the workforce."
}