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"id": 208260,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Katuku",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Water and Irrigation",
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"legal_name": "John Mutua Katuku",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to support this Motion of Adjournment. From the outset, I want to allay the fears that this Government is tired. Personally, I am not tired and I think it is wrong to take us as tired. We are very committed; what we intend to do has been the tradition. I have been in this House for the last ten years. You will find that in August we have always had two or three weeks adjournment. So, due to that tradition, we have been adjourning for holidays in August. However, for obvious reasons which you know. I can understand why you are opposing this. We have a lot of business to do, especially that particular business we have interest in. I want to say that it will still come, even if we adjourn and we will deal with it. I would, therefore, want to appeal to hon. Members to support this adjournment, come after two weeks and deal with the business we have interest in. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, hon. Members have said that this adjournment may result in the dissolution of Parliament, and I want to allay those fears. His Excellency the President, himself, has, on different occasions, made it very clear that elections will be held at the end of this year. So, hon. Members should not misconstrue this to mean that we are adjourning, so that August 16, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3267 Parliament can be dissolved. Parliament can even be dissolved when we are here, and so, that should not be an issue. I want to say that when we are on recess, Ministers get time to also visit constituencies to see how monies that are voted by this House are spent. So, as one of the Ministers, I want to assure you that I will be visiting your area, if I get time, to also see how water projects are being undertaken in your constituency. I want to inform hon. Members that when they go on recess--- In particular, my Ministry has sent monies for different projects, and I want you to take interest to visit them and give me a feedback on how they are being implemented. We want to see funds voted by this House being spent properly out there. My last point on this is that I have read from the Press over the last two weeks, and even today, about some foreigners taking sides on our internal matters that have something to do with elections, starting with what happened at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday. I have seen the newspapers today, and they were trying to be partisan. I have seen some information attributed to a German official, who is taking sides, and even going for campaigns in a partisan manner. On the issue of funding women, nobody is against funding them, but why do you have to make it public? You can fund them! You can even fund men and anybody else. But foreigners must respect our systems. They should not start saying: \"We are funding so-and-so against so-and-so!\" Foreigners should not start saying that they are going to campaign for so-and- so. They should just sit and let us exercise our democratic rights in this matter. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}