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"id": 197295,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/197295/?format=api",
"text_counter": 33,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Dache",
"speaker_title": "The Member for Migori",
"speaker": {
"id": 134,
"legal_name": "John Dache Pesa",
"slug": "john-pesa"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to give my maiden speech in this House. This is my first time to be elected to Parliament. I want to thank the people of Migori for electing me to join other Kenyans in the Tenth Parliament for the purpose of developing both Migori and Kenya as a united nation. I also want to join other Members in thanking you for your election sometime back. I want to register that most of us who are here have really appreciated the way you have guided this House so far. We wish you all the best in future. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also want to congratulate all the Members of the Tenth Parliament for having been elected in their various constituencies. As it has emerged this afternoon, last year's General Elections were very difficult to go through. For one to come here, he or she must have struggled. I also want to thank the two great Kenyans, His Excellency, the President, Mr. Mwai Kibaki, and hon. Raila Odinga for making Kenyans proud by sitting in this House together as hon. Members with one purpose. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the elections were done last year and Kenyans came out in large numbers to vote. Up to the time I was elected, there were some celebrations in Migori. But, unfortunately, when the results for the presidential elections were announced, they were received with various emotions in all the parts of this country. We are here trying to start and continue with the idea of healing in Kenya. We must be open and tell the truth. That is not to incite anybody. If I recall, around 3rd January, 2008, when I was in Migori--- We are talking about Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). I do not know what you would have called me. I could not even move in my own constituency. That is because my people had decided to behave in a manner that I had not seen in that constituency for the last 60 years that I have lived there! That brings me to say that people received the results with, at least, various conclusions. Some felt that they had been denied their rights. Others felt that the results were good. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we, as Kenyans, have lived as a united people despite, of course, a few problems here and there. In Migori, if you came there last year before the results of the presidential elections were announced, we never thought of what you call \"tribes\". Every tribe in Kenya, up to that time, was living in Migori. We lived as brothers and sisters. I, therefore, want to request this House that when we start talking about the healing process, let us go to the root cause of the problem that has really embarrassed this country since the results were announced last year. March 19, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 281 Mr. Speaker, Sir, I did not mention my name. For record purposes, I am John Dache. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to continue by thanking His Excellency the President for his very sensitive and focused Speech that we are now discussing and supporting this afternoon. The President talked about very many areas that he intends, through this Parliament, to bring improvements upon, in order to create development in Kenya from now onwards. Indeed, we want to develop Kenya so that the youths that we are talking about can actually feel that they are our children. Surely, who are those youths? Those youths are our children. If we live very comfortably and our youth cannot get employment or food, I think we must have learnt from what we saw since late December, last year. We have to bring development to this country. That can only be done if we understand that all of us must contribute, at our own levels and in our respective potentialities that we have, to the Kenyan nation. Mr. Speaker, Sir, during his Address, His Excellency the President promised us a lot about improvements in the education sector. I want to join other hon. Members in thanking our successive Governments for the expansion of education at the university level. They have also given us free primary and secondary education that many of our children are enjoying currently. Some of them, definitely, may not have joined the schools that they are in today. That is quite good and we want it to continue. But, Mr. Speaker, Sir, there are areas that our planners should actually understand and safeguard. There is every likelihood that professions will increase and, therefore, we must improve and expand our universities. But the way it has been done in the past, where some of our very noble middle level colleges have been taken over by universities, is not a very good idea. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at Kenya Science Teachers College (KSTC) - the college that I proudly want to say that made me what I am today before I joined the University of Nairobi--- That college had a purpose. At the moment, it is no longer what it used to be. What KSTC has contributed to the education sector and to this nation is quite enormous! I would have wished that we left KSTC to remain and serve Kenya in the capacity for which it was intended, when it was founded. We had Laikipia, Kenyatta and the like. We have polytechnics! I think we have learned in this country. So, if there is any expansion that should be done by our universities--- Why do we not get land, buy it and develop our universities to whatever level we want. That way, we will preserve some of our very important and excellent institutions that have made many Kenyans what they are today. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Minister for Water and Irrigation has talked quite eloquently about his intention to develop water resources in this country. I would want to add that water is very important. Many Kenyans today do not have food. That is a fact. If somebody does not have food and he has no water to drink, can you imagine what that person feels? There are areas in this country where water is not easy to come by. I happen to come from Migori. Some people may think that Migori is a very good place where we have plenty of water. If you go to the lower parts of Migori, our people are living communal type of lives, like the Legio Maria Sect. They are really suffering because there is no water. In fact, for the last six or so years, the only thing that has come up in Migori is what has come up under the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF. But I doubt whether the Ministry of Water and Irrigation has really done anything there to assist the people of Migori. Maybe, when this issue comes up, we shall have more time to talk about it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to say quietly that we are not very happy--- Some of us are not very happy as hon. Members of this House. The way the implementation of policies has been done in our country has not been very good. Take, for example, when we come here, we are told that we will get our security. About three months after joining Parliament, some of us are yet to get our security. I do not know whether that cannot be done by somebody somewhere! 282 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 19, 2008"
}