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{
    "id": 1282284,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1282284/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 330,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Ojiambo Oundo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Let me laud my fellow Member of Parliament from Busia County for bringing this timely Motion to debate matters of national interest. The spate of killings in Busia County as a whole is not confined to Teso South alone. It cuts across the entire Busia County and is an alarming situation that we, the leaders, have attempted to address, but not with much success. Busia Town is known to be home and the originator of bodaboda. Before then, we used to have bicycles, which were called ‘mi cycles’. If you had never taken a ride in a bicycle, you had not 'arrived'. If you never owned a bicycle, you were not considered a man enough, and no girl would ever accept to talk to you if you did not give her a ride on a bicycle. I am sure Hon. Emase got swept away on her feet with a ride on a bicycle. The bodaboda industry is a sector that requires a lot of attention. I remember the last regime of the Jubilee Government made an attempt to bring sanity to the bodaboda sector to regulate it for purposes of security and orderly conduct of the business. However, the process was politicised by the hustler-dynasty narrative that essentially left them the way they are now. They are very vulnerable. A motorcycle with a passenger whom we have no record where the passenger is coming from… Many times, they are left on their own devices. They are many and they cannot be policed altogether. I totally agree with Hon. Mary Emaase that there must be some kind of technology to trace them. For example, if you book an Uber or Bolt, they have an option to share location or share the trip. They must embrace that particular aspect. Just to put the matter into perspective, the issue of Busia is not even a transportation issue. It is a complicated matter to do with smuggling. The bodaboda riders are the ones who are being used to smuggle. Many a times when a deal goes bad, who is the first victim? The carrier of the merchandise or the illegal smuggled product. This is done at the protection of the police in Busia Town; protection of the Ngao officers, starting with the county commissioner and county commander. We cannot come here as Members of Parliament and try to sweep the matters under the carpet instead of telling the truth as it is. We must address that menace. Citizen Television, and I think even the NTV, aired the story very well. Of course, the beneficiaries are given their points and part of the loot from smuggling and the security organs at the Busia border point close their eyes and the same applies to contraband goods from Uganda, including bhang, which is transported through the border using the bodaboda riders. This is a matter that needs to be addressed. I sympathise and feel sorry for the businessman who was killed whose killers were traced all the way to Turkana using a motorcycle. They drove all the way from Busia to Turkana. It is a security issue and we must address this matter directly to the security team at the county level. Many a times these bodaboda motorcycles are stolen and in the process of stealing the motorcycles, whenever the riders try to defend themselves, they get injured or even killed. We are still nursing about ten bodaboda riders in Funyula Constituency who resisted stealing of their motor cycles by these thugs. Most of the time, these motorcycles end up in Uganda and that is why the other day my people carried out mob justice and killed somebody in Sifugwe in Budalangi who used to steal the motorcycles, take them to Sifugwe and transport them to Uganda. Hon. Mary Emaase sits in the Government. She must be in the forefront in talking to those guys who stopped us from doing peaceful maandamano . Instead of joining us with our"
}