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{
    "id": 1545590,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1545590/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 145,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "victim to buying these products and administering them to the animals and they do not get the desired results. Associated with that is the cost of vaccination. Vaccinations have become very expensive and most ordinary farmers cannot afford them. Even when you have vaccinations offered by the county governments, you will find that county government officials who are employed to serve the public at times those veterinary officers turn around and charge for their services. Some tell you we have gotten this, we have gotten that on our own, so we are charging a fee. So, we would like also those kinds of things to be looked into and be told why would a government employee during office hours performing the duties they are employed to perform add a fee of consideration to the services they are giving. The other thing is the qualification of veterinary officers. I had an incident personally where I lost more than 100 goats over about one month depending on veterinary officers in Busia trying to come and intervene. It was until somebody said ‘why do you not try somebody’ and then they gave all manner of theories about what could be happening. They ended up saying that the climate change was what was affecting the goats. Now, when I called the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Naivasha, they asked me to send a picture of one of the animals on WhatsApp . When I sent a picture, this fellow said, ‘oh, this is a problem and we must intervene immediately.’ They sent somebody from Naivasha to my farm, and in no time, that problem was contained. So, what makes me wonder is what kind of veterinary officers we have in Busia who over one month could not resolve a simple viral infection that required a kind of intervention. Other than fake vaccines, we have fake veterinary officers who are purporting to be doing extension work or helping farmers here and there. The Committee may also want to look at the criteria for employing people to serve in the county governments in this very critical area. Related to fake veterinary officers in terms of animal diseases, we have got the meat inspection officers. This is an area that is largely neglected but one that is extremely important given the current trend, where there is a transfer of diseasea across species from animals to human beings. We need to look at the question of remuneration, training and other aspects of equipping meat inspectors to do scientific work when they go out to inspect the meat our people eat. Many areas within the animal industry would go along with them because vaccines are about diseases in the industry that need to be looked into. There is a statement on SHIF and SHA. I would have loved to contribute to it but, unfortunately, I am litigating it in court. I have noticed that a lot of the issues raised here are before the court. Maybe, the Secretariat might want to guide the Committee on how to deal with it, given that some of those issues are being litigated in court. That being as it is, it is an extremely important case that needs to be looked into about the cost of this platform, especially in the light of the confirmation, I do not say the finding but the confirmation by the Auditor General of things that many Kenyans have been saying and complaining about and of the Government not raising a finger. There are three funds under SHA; there is only one fund that is being debated or discussed in the public discourse, and that is the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). 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."
}