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"id": 176795,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
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"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to thank hon. Lekuton so sincerely for bringing this very timely Motion. The issue of animal technicians has been ignored for quite a while now. It even appears that now the universities are looting the very institutions that were supposed to produce these technicians. For instance, we have had cases where the universities have gone on the rampage buying all these small colleges and converting them to universities. It is wrong. Technicians deal with ecotypes - a small ecosystem that has definite parameters and they use certain techniques. These techniques are the ones that make the whole economy tick. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to define these technicians into three categories as defined by the Minister for Livestock Development and persuade the Mover of this Motion to carefully look at them in that order. There are range management technicians. These are people who deal with the ecology of the grazing land particularly and focusing on such factors as grazing and fire management, wild fires, noxious weeds and so forth and so on. Then we have animal husbandry technicians. These are people who introduce modern techniques into animal breeding and what-have-you. These people deal with more of economic of it and practise it. They deal with good practices in livestock husbandry. Then we have the animal health technicians or veterinary doctors. These are very close to the farmers. Looking at the Animal Health Act, you realise that in its current form, it misses certain very serious diseases. These are diseases which have come up many years after that Act was drafted. We need also to have our technicians retrained a bit so that they can address that. Particularly in the area of zoonotic diseases. These are diseases that are transferred from animals to man and vice-versa . They can cut across. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know whether it has ever struck you; what happens when along the busy Naivasha Highway, which does not have any public toilets - I am glad the acting Minister for Roads is around so that he can in future design roads that have toilets - somebody goes to the bush and I do not want to imagine it is a lady at that particular time of the month when things are very bad and there are baboons which come around and consume that waste. That is a very unhealthy situation. We are going to introduce diseases from man to wildlife and animals, which is going to be terrible. People who can sort out this problem are animal technicians. We need them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a new area now which is more serious called biodiversity. We need a new category of technicians called biodiversity technicians or ecological technicians who will definitely be addressing issues to do with biodiversity. Biodiversity affects livestock, man and crops. These breed of technicians will be able to detect when scrupulous traders introduce genetically modified products that have not been screened and they will have the capability to detect what is genetically modified and what is not. No one has that skill now. I believe those technicians will have it. I propose to call them biodiversity technicians. We cannot operate without technicians even in very advanced stages like in the computing world and e- commerce. We do not rely on engineers but on technicians for our daily life. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we, in this Parliament, sat and agreed with those World Bank half-baked technicians who said that we should not recruit our people again. I say they are \"half-trained\" because they do not understand our systems. They did not look at the plight of our livestock all around. They did not look at the plight of our agriculture. They did not even look 3808 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES December 03, 2008 at our soil conservation measures so that we could have the agricultural technical assistance. They just looked at the books, as presented to them, at the Treasury. They are now working on our economy like a shop, a dukawalla, for that matter. They are focusing mainly on how much revenue we are collecting and how much we should not spend. Those things messed up the livestock industry. Now that we are sober and see clearly that we messed and goffered, we should go full throttle and recruit all those technicians who were trained earlier. We should also open new institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we cannot stand here to debate without remembering Dr. I. Mann. This is the founder of Animal Health and Industry Training Institute (AHITI) in Kabete. He is a man who devoted all his life discussing hydatidosis. This is a condition in which worms accumulate and form a big ball that makes a man look nine months pregnant. You have seen it, particulary in arid areas. He worked and trained technicians on that. Dr. I. Mann is somewhere in Heaven. I am sure he is not smiling when he looks at AHITI which was even hosting FAO conferences. Today, it looks like a shell of his original plan. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the same applies to Lord Egerton who built the then Egerton College which is now Egerton University. We are ignoring the fact that this country was built by technicians. Their bosses are called technical officers in the Ministerial language. Those technicians are the ones who walk around with bicycles and pikipikis . Now, with the very many districts that have been created and so many locations, these people can be very effective because they have smaller distances to cover. They may not require such a huge transport like we used to have. Technicians are required more than graduates. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, sir, at graduation, graduates get the power to read and do all that appertains to that degree. Technicians get the power to do that. They do it! They come and take on the animals. Graduates are good. I am a post-graduate, name it! However, I went to school and I was given the power to read. When I was trained as a technician in Egerton College, I was shown how to detect an animal that is likely to attack, study the mood and psychology and how to restrain the animal. I can still do it although we are on the Floor of the House. Those are the technics. From the mucous membrane, you will tell if the mouth looks pink enough. That is the technicians who we are looking for. They will not be earning those huge amounts of money that people are imagining. They will earn a humble salary but bring this economy to its feet again. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, people talk, argue and divert ideas. We blocked all the livestock routes from North Eastern Province all the way. These routes were used and are still being used by wildlife. Since now we have built estates on these routes, when wild animals try to move through the routes, we have a human-wildlife conflict. Wildlife, in their nature, are very organised if you keep off their normal traditional migratory routes. If you do not like the pastrolists, then you should like the wildlife. Once you keep the corridors clear, you will not have that conflict. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am talking about that conflict again. You will find that when the Maasais try to reach grazing land from Kajiado and Narok to Laikipia, they pass through Naivasha and other places. Then you hear things called land clashes. These are not land clashes! We have a Government that has for once stopped to plan and think properly considering everybody's need. The Maasais cannot sit there and watch their animals starve to death when their brothers and cousins in Laikipia have grass. They have to pass through Nairobi. However, that ritual causes a lot of disharmony yet it could have been resolved so easily. This can be done by creating a livestock route from Kajiado through Longonot area and to Nyahururu and Laikipia without going through Nakuru. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support this Motion very strongly and hope that this Government will have the decency to apologise to Kenyans as we debate on unga and other things. They have killed an industry through lack of proper planning and information. There is a farmer in December 03, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3809 Embu who is doing what requires 300 acres on a small piece of land. It is not that he is a magician but he has been trained by the Ministry of Livestock Development. He has access to the technics and technicians. He is selling his milk directly to Karen because the people in animal husbandry have told them that they can have a contract with people there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support this Motion and once again congratulate Mr. Lekuton and ask him to cover all these areas that are being proposed by hon. Members. I beg to support."
}