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{
    "id": 1264271,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1264271/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 368,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Narok West, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gabriel Tongoyo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me an opportunity to add my voice to this very important Motion. At the outset, I want to appreciate my colleague, the Member for Nandi Hills, for bringing this important Motion to the House so that Members can discuss and ventilate on this matter of great national importance. As you are aware, I am the Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Affairs, and this is a matter that is quite known to me. I want to start by passing my condolences to the families and our friends who lost their lives defending Kenyans. At the same time, I congratulate our security officers and personnel wherever they are - both those operating locally and in the region at large - for continuously working day and night to keep Kenya safe. It is true we had incidents of insecurity and terrorist attacks in Lamu and in some other pockets of the North-Eastern region in the recent past. In Lamu, it happened at a place known as Salama Village, in Lamu West. The official data is that we lost about 22 Kenyans comprising of four KDF soldiers and about seven civilians, and the others are members of the National Police Service. It is good to note that we have been having a multi-agency operation in Lamu’s Boni Forest where the Government of Kenya has been putting resources to ensure that we manage our borders and volatile areas. It is regrettable that such an incident happened. I want to report that ever since the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration, Hon. Kindiki, visited the area severally, there has been a lot of positive improvement. The situation is calm for now. We have managed to bring the situation to calmness and our security agencies are on top of things. There have been alleged acts of terrorism by remnants of the Al Shaabab militia but reports indicate that the attackers could be a mixture of some local elements who have taken advantage of the situation. There could be some criminal elements that have been involved in land injustices. The Cabinet Secretary has been visiting that area for quite some time now. Tomorrow, some senior KDF officers and the Inspector-General of Police will be touring the area to assess the situation and give support to the officers. It is very regrettable to have had this situation and to have lost lives of Kenyans. It is a situation that as a Committee, and even as a country, we have continuously been putting resources into. Even in the Supplementary Budget II, we allocated an additional Ksh200 million to facilitate the officers who are operating in those areas. In the Supplementary Budget I, there was also about Ksh500 million set aside for that purpose. In this Financial Year, a sum of Ksh1.6 billion has been set aside to enable security officers to carry out their work effectively. Even as we regret that this incident happened, we should celebrate that the situation in the North Rift, which was equally very bad, has improved so much. This can be attested to by a majority of the Members who come from that region. Members of the public have gone back to their farms."
}