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{
    "id": 1347797,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1347797/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 290,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bondo, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gideon Ochanda",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "You can categorise elders in very many ways now. Some are old because of age and they have not been in any skilled service. Some have been in unskilled service. There are those who have been real professionals in what they have been doing before. However, on retirement, they are all looked at the same way and yet, many of them retire but they are never tired. If you look at the kind of problem we have in education now with the teachers, parents are paying for close to half of what the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is paying in the name of Board of Management (BOM) teachers. However, many professional teachers retire at the age of 60 each year. You realise that many of them still have the energy to engage between 60 and 70 years. That happens even with other professionals, including those who are in the disciplined services. We have clear arrangements like veteran programmes that give those who retire some space to engage differently. Once you retire to nothing, the chances of dying much faster are higher than when somebody retires to some engagement. Retiring to something that still engages you will make you appear as if you have not retired. Your life is a little bit enhanced. We are in a situation now where elders are operating or surviving in all manner of odd jobs. The returns in what they are doing have been reducing. Cultures have changed. Many communities are no longer placing elders where they were before. Pensioners' money gets down with age. The older you become, the more your pension reduces. There are all manner of odds against the elders. Some very clear-cut programmes must be placed in front of them. In this country, life expectancy is 60 or 62 years, meaning that the number of people in the group we are talking about has been reducing over time. I doubt it could be a number the Government can fail to support. If you put them in the category that I was talking about by taking those who were professionals and linking them with what they were doing, in as much as we will be giving them a little support, they will also be engaged and busy. For those that have skills, can they guide some different groupings? Can we have those village polytechnics and encourage all those elders who have skills to be around the schools? We will end up with a small number of those who are retired, those getting old without any skills, or those who are basically depending on their labour. The Government can plan this because I know that it can be done. It can be done in every location if there are programmes and a clear way to do it. Those people can be in older people’s homes or their own homes, but we have an arrangement where they can eat and get healthcare. The other day, I learned that food and water are some of the things that bring those elders down. Most of them cannot wash their clothes, and then minor diseases bring them down. With a clear programmatic approach, the nation can take care of our elders beyond what we are currently doing. A sum of Ksh2,000 is not enough with the kind of life situation that we are in. And even if it was enough, its disbursement is so absurd. We have been collecting data for the last three months. There is a problem in this country; is it difficult to count those 60 years and above? We have also failed to identify indigents that were supposed to be supported under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC). There is a big problem that needs to be sorted out in this country. I support."
}