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{
    "id": 218229,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/218229/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 161,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ethuro",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Planning and National Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 158,
        "legal_name": "Ekwee David Ethuro",
        "slug": "ekwee-ethuro"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, nobody is complaining. Those are just echoes from the back. I think this is an ideal time that this House is reminding whoever is responsible on the need to actualise what we call affirmative action. The affirmative action finds eloquence in gender issues, but it hardly finds any with Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) issues. When we talk about ASALs, we will be talking more than just gender issues and more than the girl child. We will be talking about the people of Kenya. It is not a coincidence that more than 40 years after Independence, we are still talking about marginalised areas. There has been a systematic and deliberate effort to keep marginalised areas marginal and to make the prosperous ones prosper more. That is an economic epithet of capitalism which we inherited and perfected. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Sir Elliot, in the forward to the book of the Maasai in 1905, wrote that there is no need of developing the Maasai areas. He believed very strongly that after 100 years, all Maasais would become Kikuyus! Those are not my words. They are written. In 2005, those 100 years elapsed and the Maasais are still living in those areas and in our place. In 1965, under the independent Kenya, the Sessional Paper No.10 on Application of Planning with African Socialism in Mind, the policy framework was to develop those areas which had high rates of return. The areas with high rate returns were considered to be the most useful, as hon. Muturi has put it. However, simple analysis of our agricultural potential will tell you that in the mid 1980s our agricultural productivity in the so-called highland areas actually picked. The only strategy to bring in more food into production was to carry out extensive farming. That meant that by necessity, that the marginal and semi-arid areas had to be put into production. This Motion seeks to reverse this policy and ensure that the Kenyan policy recognises the fact that the ASALs are our growing point. The Vision 2030 should bring on board the contribution and role of the ASALs. That is what this hon. Member is asking this House to approve. I want to believe that the Ministry will have no problem at all in supporting this Motion. Let me give you a few statistics. When Kenya became independent, Turkana District had one African Government school; Lodwar Mixed School, which was started in 1932. As we speak now, the same school has a population of about 3,000 students. The school has a shortfall of literally everything, yet this is our best school in the district. Are those students, with inadequate facilities, the same ones you expect to compete favourably with the rest in the country? This Motion is asking us to address inequality."
}