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{
    "id": 1224598,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1224598/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 394,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in various States in the United States of America (USA), they provide for food coupons as part of their social assistance agenda, depending on which State you come from. Food coupons are given to people who are out of work and do not have food, and are literally starving. They are allowed to access coupons, which they can take to - say in our country if you were to localize it – Tuskys Supermarkets. Those food coupons are specific. They say you are allowed to take three or four packets of unga, one packet of rice, sugar and so on. Once the food coupon is given to the owner of that supermarket, it becomes cash for him. It is because when he takes it and goes to the bank, it is converted into his actual funds. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at the objects and purposes of this Bill, they capture the provisions of the Constitution that address themselves to the economic and social rights of the people of Kenya. This Bill tries to enforce it. There has not been a Bill that has really tried to come to make it happen. It has been left to political parties and leaders to try and say we are a social democracy; we will do this when we get into power; or we will give every household Kshs6,000. Different governors have come up with manifestos. At the presidential level, political parties and candidates have come with different manifestos. However, they are not based in law. It is just a programme that may or may not be followed. Nevertheless, when we pass this Bill, you will now be required by law to ensure that there is human dignity. One of the major objects and purposes of this Bill is to ensure preservation of the human dignity. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Bill brings the realisation of economic and social rights by national and county governments. With this Bill, every President and Governor will now have to be bottom up. They will have to think of the lowest people in our land. It is because when this Bill becomes law, it will force the national and county governments to realise economic and social rights for the people of Kenya. It will now be mandatory for the national Government to plan and think how the lowest of the low will be protected under Government or administration. It will force every governor by law, to make sure that the lowest of the low in his county are protected. This Bill in its object and purposes also says that we want to create a monitoring mechanism. So, it has not been left to the President or the governor to do as he pleases and make sure that maybe it is only one programme that will succeed and not the others. It is proposed in this Bill to establish a mechanism that will monitor. It will monitor to see that food is given to the hungry and that water is made available to the people of your county and the nation. This mechanism that is proposed in this Bill will monitor that adequate water, housing and sanitation is achieved under any administration. Whether it is this governor or this president, when they move out, still those programmes must continue with the next Ggovernment at the national as well as county level. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the application of the Equalization Fund. For a long time, it has not had a way in which it can work. There has been a problem, even in defining which are the marginalized areas. For us who have been in leadership for some"
}