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{
    "id": 1549376,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1549376/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 92,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 170,
        "legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
        "slug": "bonny-khalwale"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. Allow me to laud the Senator of Taita-Taveta County. The issue of the role of chiefs is truly misunderstood. Chiefs and assistant chiefs are important; you do not have to ask. The moment you enter Magarini and meet an assistant chief, their discipline, demeanour and grasp of local issues is always congruent to what I find in Lwakhakha in Bungoma. What is lacking is the national appreciation of their work. Mr. Speaker, Sir, look at the critical area of alternative resolution of disputes. Chiefs and assistant chiefs are the only ones who are not corrupt in that court. They are able to preside over serious issues, including land issues, and they settle those cases amicably, without having to be corrupted. However, allowed to go through the normal legal process, families will spend years without end, waste hundreds of thousands of shillings, and no resolution of the dispute will come. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to add that we should have clear distinction between the key issues of the court, the chiefs and their roles, and the new-look police stations. There are now so many police stations in the villages. So, the police will ask the assistant chief to go and arrest criminals. The chiefs and assistant chiefs risk their lives because some of these criminals are violent people. When they hand them over at the police station, at the police station, the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) creates a kangaroo court and releases the same criminals. The criminals go back to the village and attack the assistant chief and the chief. We need to protect these people, and this protection should appreciate that they also need medical cover. Mr. Speaker, Sir, our chiefs require to be trained and formally armed with firearms for their own protection and their facilitation to carry out their duties. Finally, most governors across the country have created a parallel administrative unit. Some call it village administrators. Whatever they call them, we need to harmonize between the two levels of Government, so that there is no clashing. Sometimes you go to public functions and hear the chief being contradicted by the community area administrator from a county government. I support this important Statement."
}