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{
    "id": 1520344,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1520344/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 335,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Borabu, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Patrick Osero",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me this opportunity, albeit a bit late. Right from the outset, I support the Bill with amendments. It is a shame that 60 years after Independence, we are talking about equality, and trying to equalise communities. This is 2025 when we see some people from some regions advertising their NG-CDF programmes on national television and saying how much they have got, and how much their constituencies are developed. This is on national television. We wonder why Hon. Mbadi or anybody else does not advertise. Hon. Temporary Speaker, you rightly put it that something needs to be done with our budgeting. We need to overhaul our Budget and Appropriations Committee and the way we budget so that it is itemised and is focused to certain programmes and ring-fenced to avoid any interferences. It is very disheartening when we go back home and somebody asks why certain Members have paved roads up to nursery schools and others tarmac roads up to primary schools. At such a time, we wonder what this budget was all about. So, Hon. Temporary Speaker, you rightly put it that we need to focus on our budgeting process. Coming back to this Equalisation Fund (Administration) Bill, it is true there is historical marginalisation that has been happening, but I do not believe this is the panacea for tats. This is just a drop in the ocean. Devolution came and it should have equalised. So why is this equalisation again if devolution has not equalised? That means the devolution that came 10 or 15 years ago and has not managed to address the economic marginalisation of other communities. This is where the issue of historical injustices should come in. We should do a scientific analysis of the marginalisation over the last 60 years, and then we can appropriate fairly. But we cannot just put a blanket law that we want to equalise some areas that have been marginalised. I do not believe that can work at this particular point in time because of the historical injustices. Secondly, we have seen the effects of devolution. Rural-urban immigration may have fallen, but money follows activities. For instance, in my constituency, Borabu, we had issues of cattle rustling with our neighbours, and we realised that there was little economic activity across. The moment we put in some economic development, cattle rustling went down. This is the same in other areas. I believe some of these issues at the Northern Frontier Districts (NFDs) were issues of the shiftas of the 60s and 70s, which is why the Government shunned them. However, with the peace that we now have there, if we put this particular Fund to good cause, The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}