HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 190817,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/190817/?format=api",
"text_counter": 289,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Maj. Godhana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Information and Communications",
"speaker": {
"id": 23,
"legal_name": "Dhadho Gaddae Godhana",
"slug": "dhadho-godhana"
},
"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to support the Bill but with a lot of amendments. Before we think about bringing up this Bill, we must realise, first of all, the genesis of the problem of ethnicity. I want to concur with the hon. Member who said that the beginning of the whole of this problem is way back at the time of colonisation. The system of administration that fitted the colonialists and enabled them to control issues and resources in this country was the divide-and- rule policy. Through this, they managed to penetrate between communities, and were able to achieve whatever they wanted to achieve. However, after they left, succeeding Governments adopted the same system. The system encouraged an old practice of conquests and expansionism. It allowed and encouraged communities to scramble for resources. So, it depended on who was smarter than the other. The situation brought us to a situation similar to that in Animal Farm, where the fittest would survive and the weakest would eventually die. The struggle today is from the bottom, the smallest unit. It is from the family to the tribe; it is no wonder that the Bill is about ethnic and race relations. It is because as much as we are looking at ethnic and the race, we still have problems down at the family. Families are still struggling for survival. What we went through early this year was a build-up of events that were carried over and allowed to accumulate. That is why we saw what happened. People were scrambling to get to power, because they knew that being in power, you could use the same system to advance your interests. That is why today the competition for the political posts of Members of Parliament and councillors is very high. No wonder in the last elections, we had up to, in some areas, 40 people vying for the post of MP. Those who proposed this Bill realised that we required to emerge sharper and brighter than we used to be. It is the right time that something like this has come up in this Parliament. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to realise that if it has come, then it is by adopting the best way of doing it that we may be able to overcome. It will not be by just bringing a Bill; the best way of handling the problem that we have always been carrying over will determine how we can come out of this. I do not want to explain the effects of ethnicity. Hon. Members here agree with me that politically the deployment of civil servants in some areas was meant to advance ethnic interests. That encouraged corruption! That is the key thing that brought about corruption in some areas, and, to some extent encouraged under-development. Those areas that were properly represented in power had a chance of reaping from others to enrich themselves. Socially, it has threatened the family bond. We know that the family is a heavenly concept to advance the concept of God. However, today we have become so ungodly because of ethnic group. Today, a man and a wife in the same house cannot agree on some issues, because one is from a different ethnic group. I 1652 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 3, 2008 happened to serve in my previous profession and I went to some peace-keeping missions. It reached a point where it was adopted as a Government policy, that if you are a husband and you have married from elsewhere, and you live with your wife at your home, then you kill her. If it was the reverse, then the wife killed the husband. It was a policy by some small administrative governments and that was happening. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today people fear to marry from certain communities. They feel that members of those communities will eventually turn against them. One feels that things will not go right. We have so many ladies and gentlemen in this country who really want to get married from different communities, but they are worried about what will happen in future. To some extent, children have been neglected because of divorces and other factors. Others have been thrown into the streets. Some pregnancies have been aborted or terminated because of ethnicity. So, ethnicity has encouraged bad morals to an extent that, today, for members of different communities killing one another, or destroying other people's property, is not a problem! When it comes to economic development, even in our own Budget, we seem to give more funding to some regions than others. As I was looking at this Bill, I was reminded by a certain university student that even the education sector has been affected. Even in universities, students from certain communities are admitted to faculties which do not offer employment opportunities. I was shocked. Upon completion of studies, such graduands are meant to stay jobless, waiting for openings. In the process, they get old without getting any formal employment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I looked at the mandate given to the proposed commission and found that there is a lot of duplication. We have institutions within the Government, which can actually do the job of this commission. Those institutions were established to perform the job of this commission. For instance, the Ministry of State for Internal Security is established to handle issues of insecurity within the borders of this nation. The skirmishes that we have been seeing among communities, honestly, are unwarranted. They should not, in the first place, have been allowed to happen. When things were boiling, the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security with all the police and other security forces, were watching. Why do we wait until things happen for us to act? It means we are not proactive. We wait for things to happen and then we run to go and consult people. The whole country was affected. In Central Province, there were skirmishes. They do not happen once. They have always been happening. They were happening even before we gained Independence. There are always skirmishes over resources in the Central Province, the Rift Valley, the Coast Province and the North Eastern Province. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I happen to come from a community which has never experienced peace, I believe, from the time of creation to date. We move from one clash to another. If you look at the reasons, they are so petty. They are matters which can easily be handled, but they are left until situations get out of hand. We have lost a lot of lives. When I looked at this Bill, I realised that the job of the commission being created is basically to carry out investigation. Clause 13(m) and (n) say that they should initiate, lobby for and advocate for policy, legal or administrative reforms. We want to research for us to be able to review or come up with legislations which can encourage ethnic and racial harmony? Clause 13(m) says:- \"To monitor and review all legislations and all administrative Acts.\" Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I did not want to go into examining the whole of this Bill, but my argument is that the title is basically talking about establishing a commission which will be able to address the issues of ethnic and race disharmony, and thus promoting good relations between races and ethnic groups. In my view, we do not require a commission. I wish to propose that the work \"Commission\" in the title be removed, so that the title can read \"The National, Ethnic July 3, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1653 and Race Relations Bill\", because the proposed commission will just act like the rest of the commissions we have seen in this country. It will just be doing some research and taking their reports to some places to gather dust. However, if we make this Bill an Act of Parliament, with amendments to give it the teeth to bite, so that it can address issues before they get out of hand, then we will have given this Bill more value. Thereafter, we can review the policies within the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security to be able to enforce the law. That is my thinking. If not that, the best alternative would be to come up with a Ministry which will be in charge of communities. Again, when I was looking at this Bill, I asked myself one question: What will be the duties of the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, that means we need to create a department either within the Provincial Administration, or within the Ministry of State for Internal Security, to be able to enforce this Act. I would not mind us coming up with a task force. If we really want these issues to come out clearly, we need a task force to go round and get views from the people of this country, to be able to add value to this Bill. From that point, we can then come up with whatever document we would wish to come up with. For me, I would like to propose that the title of the Bill be amended to read \"The National Ethnic and Race Relations Bill.\" With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}