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{
    "id": 146471,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/146471/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 423,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The other thematic area is Investment in Food Security and Sustainable Environment. We have suffered in the recent past severe hunger in this country. A country that cannot feed itself is no country. Food is a recurrent requirement and what we need to do is to ensure that we have our food recurrently. We can do this by making adequate investments in the production of food. It does not serve us any purpose to run around looking for where maize is cheapest. What we need is to invest that money. We need to mechanise our agricultural system. We need to invest in our extension officers. We need to invest in farm inputs. We are looking for an improved agriculture budget. We are a little bit disappointed. I am made to understand that there is money for irrigation. But we need to do little mechanization in our farms. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other area is strengthening of governance. I was disappointed by the Minister in these areas because I found him a little lenient on the governance issues. If we do not sort out our governance issues then the rest will just be music. I have in mind areas where governance issues have been dealt with very decisively. Right now, I know that the Minister is intent in borrowing. But most of the borrowings that we have done, we have very little to show for them. We have very little to show for them because the people who borrowed and received the money did not use the money for the intended purpose. Most disappointingly, we have no record of anybody who has been arrested and charged with this offence. It becomes ridiculous today, if you want to borrow to construct railways and yet, we know that our railway has a huge debt on it. It has a debt portfolio standing at over Kshs11 billion. Nobody would want to lend money in that direction. But we could do better if we demonstrate our determination and decisiveness in dealing with people who misappropriate such borrowing leaving generations and generations with the burden of paying for what they are not seeing."
}