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{
    "id": 244824,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/244824/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Khamasi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 300,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Lyula Khamasi",
        "slug": "daniel-khamasi"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this debate. First of all, I would like to say that if a foreigner came here, he would wonder how our Government is functioning without the Bill being an Act of Parliament. I want to thank the Minister for Planning and Natural Development for bringing the Bill to this House. It is a simple Bill that requires us to give consent so that it becomes an Act of Parliament. If you do not have data, it is very difficult to arrive at good conclusions. It is in this regard that we have seen very funny decisions being made and our resources being distributed in the most unfair and skewed manner. I want to believe that has been so because we had not established a proper bureau of statistics. I think the Bill is good and we need to go ahead and pass it. Currently, the figures that are in place at the bodies which give statics to our Ministry of Finance and other Ministries which distribute national resources must be wrong. First, I want to agree with what hon. Nyachae said; that, we need ownership of that information by the populace of Kenya. For instance, if you look at the objectives of this Bill, you will see that one of them is to conduct population and housing census after 10 years and other such census as the board may require. Every 10 years after the census exercise is carried out, there have been a lot of queries. The accuracy of the exercise has always been questioned time and again. The manner in which the exercise is done is sometimes covered in secrecy. The results take long to be published and one wonders what the cause of such delay may be. No wonder, when distribution of national resources is taking place, we see data that is not correct being used. I have a very classic example, which perhaps, I should share with this House. It is information about a constituency which neighbours mine. My Shinyalu Constituency was hived off 1862 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 5, 2005 from Ikolomani Constituency. We have the same people living in those constituencies, eating the same food and, in fact, you cannot tell the difference between someone who lives in Ikolomani with one who comes from Shinyalu. To my surprise, I was told that Ikolomani is one of the poorest constituencies in Kenya. It is ranked among the poorest constituencies. I then wondered where the statistics had come from, yet Shinyalu Constituency was carved off from Ikolomani. The poverty is to an extent that when CDF allocations are being made, Ikolomani gets more money than Shinyalu, which has a bigger population. I was wondering how we can rationalise the figures. Where did people get the figures from? One cannot understand. It is important that we get the figures from the right place and make good use of them because occasionally, some bad use has been made out of them. It is important that we use the figures properly. I would like to tell the Minister that we need affirmative action in many parts of this country, particularly when it comes to resources allocation. You will find that a Budget is presented to this House and we approve it. Recently, we were told in a seminar that the Ministry of Finance no longer distributes allocations on behalf of Ministries. It is the work of the Ministries to distribute the resources it has been given. That is the practice now. Last year, we saw water finances going to areas where there is water. Areas which, genuinely, needed the resources mostly got peanuts. On the issue of roads, as we are talking, the biggest chunk of last year's allocations went to areas which have good roads. Areas which do not have a single kilometre of tarmac road did not get a single penny. One wonders how we use statistics. We hope that the Minister for Planning and National Development will implore his counter-part in the Ministry of Finance so that when statistics are well established, affirmative action will be used as the answer to the problems in our country and we will have fewer complaints. As I said, this is a very simple Bill that we need to pass so that it becomes law for the benefit of Kenyans. I support."
}