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{
    "id": 1473320,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1473320/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 411,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Those people are still suffering and some of them do not even have shelter because there was no response connected to recovery of these people. There are people in Mathare, Mukuru kwa Njenga and Mavoko who are still facing serious impact of floods that we had. Why is that so? We ended up centralizing the notion of disaster response. It is a response that helps you eat today but does not know how you survive tomorrow. For you to survive tomorrow, there has to be a proper recovery plan. The plan can only happen if you avoid putting all these clusters of disasters in this country under one omnibus authority that then is supposed to respond to them. Therefore, this Bill is dangerous because apart from just wasting taxpayers' money and creating jobs for people, it will be the one big hindrance that will make sure we never properly prepare and respond to disasters in this country. I am disappointed that there are even proposals in this Bill that the Authority can run as a corporation. Basically, you are saying that this Authority should actually be registered as a corporation under the Registrar of Companies. Under Clause 2 of this Bill, when you start arguing that this Authority will have the powers to own property, both movable and unmovable, to open bank accounts, to start borrowing and to also do lending; you are creating a corporation in this country to deal with the disaster. How else can I speak about disaster without thinking about this commercialisation of people who are going to suffer in this disaster? If you are proposing to run a corporation that will deal with this disaster of whichever kind in the country, then what you are doing is, basically, creating a corporation that is supposed to mortgage our sufferings as a people of Kenya during a disaster and make any money from it. I wish that we could do a proper response to disaster by making sure that we pass regulations that empower different agencies that are dealing with different clusters of disasters in their own way. As I conclude; I promised in this House time without number that any Bill that seeks to centralise any operation on the basic needs of Kenyans; most of the time when disasters happen, they touch on serious basic needs--- Clause 4, talks about counties being given some committees that are only responsive to this large Authority that has got a serious board. There is no coherence in terms of how that function arms, how those counties get funded yet, you are giving power to the national authority to borrow, lend, own assets and get its own independent budget by denying counties. It is something I will never support. This is because when those disasters happen in Migori and Kakamega counties, the point of call starts with the Members of County Assemblies (MCA); the people who are with the people on the ground to the extent that when a fire happens in Nairobi City County or Kuria, where I come from, the first person that the people will call is the MCA. Then, the MCA will look for the MP who will then look for the governor and the women rep. The local leadership will coalesce around responding to this problem. The moment you deny them the functional capacity in terms of resources, to think about how they respond to this properly, then, it becomes a problem. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}