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"speaker_name": "Mr. Weya",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for allowing me to support this Motion. It is about time that we have this Motion in this House. Over the years since Independence the Government had stopped building houses. I think Jamhuri Estate was the last one they ever put up. It is also about time that we consider, as our colleagues said, providing finances that enable the poor to own houses. If you go to some of these estates, you will find that somebody is living in his bedroom and his feet are outside the window. Those houses are constructed in ways that even human beings should not be living in them. If you go to countries around the world, even places like Burundi, governments are putting up houses and making them affordable over a period of 15 years, to enable citizens to own those houses. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know where we went wrong in this country because, at Independence, the Government was putting up houses as county councils or municipal councils all over the country. A time has come that we need, as African nations, to manage our resources well enough to be able to provide housing, which is a necessity for our people, so that they can live in habitable conditions. Recently I visited South Africa. The Government of South Africa has enabled low income earners in Soweto to put up residential houses and also giving them periods of time to be able to pay for those houses. Even in the United Kingdom, where the people are not able to afford houses, the Government is putting up houses and giving them low rental incomes to enable them to stay in 2190 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 19, 2006 those houses. Even if you stay for over a period of 15 years in those houses, the rent you are going to pay is subsidised in a manner that you are able to afford those houses. Those houses are for the low income earners. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, over the years, the rich have taken advantage to put up low income houses in some of the residential areas and they are earning huge incomes in a house that should not be collecting that kind of rent. You will find that in a building, there are about 300 apartments, and in the same building you find about 20 toilets and 20 showers. That man is collecting an income from a building that is costing about Kshs30 million; he is collecting Kshs300,000, every month tax-free. If you put up a house in Muthaiga today for Kshs50 million, you will not be able to collect that kind of rent. So, it has become a lucrative business for the rich people to go and strip slums and put up buildings that are hazardous to human consumption. If there is an earth tremor in Nairobi today, the number of people who will die will be overwhelming. Those structures are put up within three or four months and people start living in those houses, yet there are no proper plans for those houses. Time has come for the Government to be responsible to its people. It should ensure that all its people live in habitable houses. I think my three minutes are over; so, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}