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"id": 181622,
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"speaker_name": "Dr. Otichillo",
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"legal_name": "Wilber Ottichilo Khasilwa",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr. Eseli for bringing this Motion to this House. This Motion is extremely important because it is dealing with equity. In this country, equity has been one of the key problems. We have had unequal distribution of resources in the county for a long time. That has led to unequal development within the country. This is one of the issues that has brought people in various areas to think that other areas are favoured over the others. So, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to support this Motion. As I support the Motion, I want to raise a number of salient issues that will go with this Motion. I am sure we are going to support this Motion and it will go through. But the most important thing is the data and information that will be required to effect or implement this Motion. Data and information are very crucial. For example, we must come out with a credible system of determining poverty levels October 29, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3101 in the entire country, so that we can be able to say, for sure, this area has poverty levels of this size. Otherwise, we will end up with a lot of disagreements as to whether your area is poorer than the other or not. So, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think that with this Motion, we require, particularly, the Ministry of Planning, National Development and Vision 2030 to come up with very good information on poverty levels and population. As we all know, in this country, the population Census report of 1999 was never officially released because of various disagreements. Therefore, we have to plan. It is good that this Motion is coming when we are planning for a national Census next year. So, as we plan for a national census, we must take into consideration all the factors that will be necessary to implement this Motion. Therefore, the way we are going to conduct our population census must be clearly well understood by all the hon. Members of this House and all Kenyans. That way, when we get the results of the census, we will not have people arguing against it or for it. We do not want them to say that the census was not carried out well. So, that important aspect is very crucial for this Motion to be implemented. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are also very many other social economic indicators that are required to fully implement this Motion. Again, I believe they will all be captured during the 2009 population Census. So, personally, I put a lot of premium on the population census that we are going to carry out next year, to give us credible information that will enable this country to equitably share out our meagre resources. That way, all parts of this country will equitably receive resources that will contribute to their development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, like other colleagues have said, I want to emphasise, particularly on the issue of the CDF. We need to put into consideration, at least, the issue of population, poverty levels and the size of the area. All these parameters are extremely important if we are going to allocate the money fairly and equitably. For example, Emuhaya has one of the highest population density in the country. In Emuhaya, the population density is 1,200 per square kilometre. This is a very high population density on the scale of the world comparison. Therefore, we need to consider all these factors when we are trying to share out the resources we have. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other area I want to highlight is particularly the issue of grants. We have so many grants that are given out to various areas, particularly grants from Ministries, for example, the Ministry of Education. You will find that most of these grants are given out and we do not know the criteria used to allocate them, for example, for school rehabilitation, laboratories or for all these aspects of the Government. We need criteria to be clearly set out within the Ministries if we have grants that are given out to various parts of the country. We need to know the criteria used so that we can know that the particular area that has received the grant deserves to get it. Also when it comes to the formulation of development projects in the country, we have noted that there is a lot of bias. You will find that particular areas continuously keep receiving projects, particularly donor funded, mainly because the technocrats involved who are in the Ministry are from those areas. So, they spearhead those projects to go to their areas. In that process, you find that certain areas where we do not have technocrats in the key Ministries do not have projects. All the time when we are passing the Votes and we have questioned a number of them that we have so far passed in this House, you will find that particular areas are having donor funded projects with millions of shillings while other areas are receiving nothing. So, we also want to come up with a criteria, clear principles and guidelines on how these projects are formulated and how they are awarded so that we have areas that need more development being given top priority. I want to make it clear that we want equity for the whole country but we need to be fair. 3102 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE October 29, 2008 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}