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{
    "id": 1353708,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1353708/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 574,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mukurweini, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kaguchia John",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I truly appreciate this opportunity. Once again, I stand to support this amendment that has been moved by Hon. Injendi. Indeed, we need to compensate our village elders. As we all understand, they have an extremely important role in the society we live in today. We will all appreciate the fact that village elders are the people who help us in community policing. They help a lot in intelligence collection. If the intelligence they collect is properly utilised, we know very well that we can prevent insecurities in our villages, communities, society and country. The same village elders are also helping the Government to ensure that we have 100 per cent transition of our children from primary school to secondary school. They are playing a very important role in our society. Village elders are also helping us a lot with ensuring that we have Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). As per Article 159 of our Constitution of Kenya 2010, so many disputes we have today would end up in court if we did not have village elders. Today, village elders handle most of the disputes at that low level in the village. The disputes have to do with land and domestic issues. They have helped our country in a very big way. We also have succession cases, where families cannot agree on how to handle succession in their families. Village elders have also come on board to help us a lot in resolving those. All this saves the country's human resources, money and a lot of emotional turmoil that our people would suffer. Village elders also act as a repository of knowledge and information. They have acted as institutional memory in our villages. When we cannot remember what and where boundaries for our shopping centres and our public and community land are, those people come forward to help us understand and map out. You know how much this eases this country. The other reason we must compensate them and budget for them is the risk they suffer. You can imagine the kind of exposure they have whenever they are engaged in unearthing insecurity plans by our enemies in villages and the country. They suffer some risk. We need to compensate them. Remember they also suffer some costs. They carry quite a number of costs. They have to listen to the radio, and they must have televisions to watch and understand what is happening in the country so that they can explain Government policies to the people. That is to help people understand what is happening in the country. They have to buy credit and airtime. Sometimes, they have to pay boda bodas to move from one place to another. They also have to buy torches and batteries when they have to move at night to help ensure that they settle some cases. Indeed, they deserve to be paid and compensated. For this reason, I stand here and support that we compensate village elders and the people who are dealing with the community security in our areas. I know how useful and important they are to us, and the community in Mukurweini Constituency. I support."
}