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"id": 177004,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/177004/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
"speaker": {
"id": 185,
"legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
"slug": "danson-mungatana"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I will be very obedient to your direction. First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. Secondly, I would like to congratulate the Minister who is moving this Sessional Paper No. 2 of 2008 - the National Livestock Policy. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, without repeating myself, I want to fully support what is before us today. But I want to make three quick points and then allow other hon. Members to make their contributions. The first one is this: I am a little disappointed with this Sessional Paper because I feel that, in as much as it is talking about the cattle and livestock, it has completely forgotten about the human element. So, this policy is just focusing on animals. There is nothing being discussed in this Policy Paper about the people. May the Minister listen and hear me. In the final analysis, we are making policies for the people; not for the livestock. I want to say that in my constituency, which is partly agricultural and partly livestock, there are livestock owners. There are those who herd those animals. They are young people like me and you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. They are mistreated, poorly paid and nobody cares about them. There has got to be a policy that addresses the wages and working conditions of those people who look after those animals. If that is not done, then we are not addressing our problems. We are saying that we are going to improve the lives of those people and, at the same time, they will continue wallowing in that poverty. Still on the human element, if we are saying that the target is to improve the livelihood and the living conditions of our people who are in pastoral livelihoods--- Many times, pictures are taken of homes belonging to citizens of this country who keep livestock. Where is the effort in this policy to tell us that we need to have proper homes? It is not fun to live in a house that needs to be reconstructed after every rainy season. Something needs to be done. For us to say that we have a policy that focuses on the people who live this lifestyle, we also need to look at the kind of housing that is affecting them; that has to be in this policy. It is not a matter of us getting good prices for the cattle, yet those farmers who have a number of cattle are living in conditions that are not acceptable and that do not reflect well on our Vision 2030. That has to be a Government policy. The Government needs to move in to December 3, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3851 make sure that from the profits of all those co-operatives, decent housing is made available to farmers. Regarding the issue of moving from one place to another, people speak of it as if it is fun. It is not! These people move from one place to another in the wilderness, from one border to another; there has got to be a better way of doing it. There has got to be a better way of living. Many of us who come from those areas, when we get educated and move out, we do not let our children go herding cattle in the wilderness. That means that there is a better way of doing the same business. In the United States of America (USA), they have ranches. They also have bad conditions like us, but they are able to manage their cattle properly. I do not see that human element in this Policy Paper. Can the Minister seriously think about the human element in this Paper? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the second point that I want to talk about is that there are several boards that have been set up here like the Livestock Marketing Board, the Kenya Livestock Inspectorate Board and so on. One of the things that has affected animals, and animal production, in this country is the fact that from time to time, terrible diseases come and clear every gain that has been made. How can the Minister forget to set up a board that would be seriously concentrating and focusing on drugs availability and distribution across the whole country, specifically for veterinary care of our animals? Right now, it is everybody for himself. There is absolutely no policy on the distribution of drugs. If you look at the human drugs that we have, and I am speaking as the Assistant Minister, Ministry of Medical Services, we make sure that in every part of the country, there is a system of distribution. We may be blamed of inefficiency or lack of drugs but there is a system. In the veterinary sector, there is nothing moving. You cannot be sure where the drugs are going to be and when. Can we have a board? There is need for a board to be set up to simply look at how drugs are going to be available. Are they going to be at a centralised place? How are we going to institute a distribution system that will help all the people who take care of animals access drugs. That is something that is missing here. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally and on the third point, we have talked about food scarcity. One of the things that happens in this country due to weather patterns is that animals, animals move. Since there is no policy on how we can keep them within certain areas, or provide them with food during the dry season, they move. We have a problem here. As we work on how to get good feeds to sustain the animals during the dry season, there has got to be an in-built policy on how animals can officially access some areas of our parks. We have a problem, for example, in the Tana Delta and Tana River Districts. Animals are harassed. When we ask for permission for them to go into the parks at certain times of the year, they are harassed. Animals are arrested and are at the mercy and discretion of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), who have grabbed so much land in some of those areas. There should be a formal policy on how animals can be allowed to go and graze in the parks and come out. There should be a formal policy in order to avoid conflicts in our region. If you are moving animals from the Tana Delta to Malindi District, or from Ijara or Lamu to the Tana Delta, what are the compensatory arrangements that the Tana Delta will be entitled to? These animals move into areas and people become very hostile, because they know that those are not their animals. They come and over-populate their areas. So, the animals that live in that area also suffer scarcity, yet they had enough. If animals must move from one district to another, can we have a policy which everybody knows about. For example the District Commissioners can negotiate. If it is in the parks, the KWS should know about it. Sometimes, we see animals in towns. There must be a policy. I see it lacking in this Policy Paper. With those three points, I hope that the Minister will consider them, find them of value because they are practical and are about issues that we are living with and need to be addressed 3852 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES December 3, 2008 through a formal policy. Thank you and I beg to support."
}