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{
    "id": 142367,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/142367/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 345,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Affey",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 381,
        "legal_name": "Mohammed Abdi Affey",
        "slug": "mohammed-affey"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker Sir, for giving me this opportunity to support this Motion. I support it with my heart, mind and soul. I begin by thanking the hon. Member for North Horr, Mr. Chachu Ganya, for bringing this Motion before this House and for causing the Government to take action. This Motion which seeks to address the problems that nearly 80 per cent of this country’s population faces has been brought on the Floor of this House by an hon. Member. This should have been the responsibility of the Government. The Government should have brought this Motion a long time ago. However, since the Government does not think and does not want to think, I want to thank the hon. Member for making it think. There is no way we can think about Kenya without thinking about the northern part of this country. Last year, after the crisis, once the Cabinet was formed, there were a lot of celebrations in northern Kenya because for the first time, there seemed to be a genuine attempt to solve our problems by establishing a Ministry particularly responsible for this region in terms of trying to fast- track development. However, we are increasingly becoming disappointed. We are starting to think that this was a political gimmick and that this Ministry was maybe established in order to satisfy the huge voting blocks that certain parties achieved. Part of it was a campaign platform by certain political parties. You cannot attempt to establish a Ministry like this and then you give it a paltry Kshs2 billion in two consecutive budgets, part of which is supposed to go to a project called Arid Lands Resource Management Project. We want to thank that project and its management. That money has not been coming from the Government. It has been coming from our friends; the international community. I think if there is a real definition of Government and sense of Government in northern Kenya; it is only the Arid Lands Resource Management Project that can qualify to really mean “Government” to the people because it has been useful in terms of mitigating their problems. I just happen to have come from home last evening, a constituency represented by hon. Abdirahman in Wajir South. This happens to be my home area. I have realized that in that part of the country, if there is no focus by the Government to mitigate disaster that is likely to happen, we might go to the countryside or the constituencies with the firefighting measures when we might have lost livestock which is the backbone of our economy and even lose people. This Motion seeks to establish Drought Management Authority responsible for drought preparedness. To prepare is to plan. Failure to plan is planning to fail. I, therefore, want to support this Motion and to request the Minister, even though he is consulting, to do all that is possible to justify his presence here as a Minister and second, the relevance of the Ministry to the country and fast-track the development of this Authority. Mr. Chachu has said that this Ministry will be responsible for the coordination of the very many items that lie in many Ministries that are relevant in northern Kenya. Currently, there are six other Ministries, apart from the Ministry of State for Development Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, which have pocket budgets to support the northern Kenya programmes. Why did the Government establish the Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands when we have a substantial budget for it in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the Ministry of Regional Development Authorities, the Ministry of Lands, and the Office of the President and especially in the Ministry of State for Special Programmes? What is the essence of establishing the Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands"
}