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"speaker_name": "Mr. Poghisio",
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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Presidential Address. Every time we begin a new Session of Parliament, we listen to a Presidential Address. I would like to be on record as having stated, each time I stood here, that this is meant to be the state of the State address. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, like many speeches issued by this Government, the Presidential Address has become a compilation of presentations by Ministers, which are put together and read to us. This means that the trend does not present the state of the State. It does not show the imbalances in the country. It only portrays the positive things, which the Government would like to highlight to show that it is making progress. We would like to see a situation whereby the President actually pinpoints some of the things that are challenging the Government. Those are things which will help us to understand the actual state of this State. That would be the biggest challenge. This has not happened only this time. It has always happened. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the concept of the state of the State should be able to tell us, for example, that this country is not balanced. There are people who are in the periphery and others who are in the centre, whereas they are supposed to be one. The idea of a Government should be to bring those people who are below par to par. The aim should be to try and balance things during budgeting as well as through Bills and Motions that March 29, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 157 are brought to this House, so that those who are marginalised can have a chance to catch up with the rest of Kenyans. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I represent a community which is always playing catch-up. I wonder from which point they are trying to catch up. I have stated here several times that the constituency I represent, Kacheliba, is very interesting. It is a constituency which has been administered by two countries. Before 1970, it was administered by Uganda. It fell under Kenyan administration in 1970. Is there any special programme for Kacheliba Constituency? There is none. Is there any attempt to bring Kacheliba Constituency up to a point it can catch up with the rest of this country? There is none. The Presidential Address does not include issues like these ones. It does not even give hope to the people. Whenever the President talks about ASAL areas, he talks about the North Eastern Province although there are 22 ASAL districts in this country. Even when we talk about supplying drinking water and other commodities to famine stricken areas, many times the President talks in terms of the North Eastern Province, not knowing that there are many other dry areas deserving the same treatment. That is what I expect. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also expect this Government to begin to understand that every Government that comes and passes will be held responsible for leaving some of its own people suffering. My constituency has gone through so much. It took so long for relief food to reach there. In fact, food distribution commenced only this month despite the fact that people have been starving all along. Secondly, we had a very interesting situation where there was an outbreak of meningitis in Kacheliba Constituency but the Ministry of Health took its time to respond. Meningitis is a very dangerous disease, especially for those of us who live on the border of this country with other countries. It can cross the border and sweep across an entire region. It can even reach Nairobi. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, people thought that as long as the disease was contained in Kacheliba, it was okay. Meningitis is capable of spreading to areas beyond Kacheliba Constituency and even reaching Nairobi and into Government offices. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to challenge the Ministry of Health to give an account of what it did from the time we reported the first case of meningitis until 50 people had died. Where was the Ministry of Health and what were its officials doing? Innocent school children died from meningitis. Meningitis is a bacterial infection and where people are crowded, it spreads very fast. It spread and killed so many people without any response from the Ministry of Health. Finally the vaccine was given to everybody after we had lost so many people. It is not all rosy as the Minister for Livestock and Fisheries Development wants us to believe. We need to work for the minority groups in this country. Let me talk about water. Who needs more water in this country? I thought it was natural that we should be taking more water in the dry areas where people have no water. But is the water going there? With regard to education, who needs more money for education than those who have been left behind in education? But is that the criteria for giving out the money? I was surprised to hear the Minister who spoke before me saying that it is the poverty index which is used for development purposes. That is a good way to do it, but it is not the way it is being done. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, recently when there was drought, the Government introduced some soft loans for livestock farmers. However, the requirement for those loans is that you have to have a title deed as a security. I cannot believe that you would demand for title deeds from pastoralists, whose lands, in accordance with the Constitution, are known as trust lands. There are no title deeds in trust lands. So, you cannot then demand that they secure the loans using title deeds. The Minister must come up with very relevant ways of securing loans in areas where people do not have title deeds. The Minister and the others who are responsible for this do not know what 158 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 29, 2006 the other hand knows. You cannot expect people whose land is under one title to get title deeds. Where will they get title deeds to secure the loans? This is what I mean by referring to the imbalance that exists on the other side of the rosy side of the Government. We have kept saying these things all over and now we have began to complain. I would like to talk about security. I know that the Government has tried to contain security in the land. We are now seeing a situation which if left to continue at this rate, we are going to have a lot of problems, especially in the rural areas. Recently, two of my constituents who were travelling from Kisumu back home after they had sold their livestock were stopped and raided by people who were dressed like policemen. They robbed them of Kshs275,000 in the Malaba Forest. Who are these people who were dressed like policemen, stopped a matatu and got two people out and robbed them? We are still pursuing this particular case. There are many cases of insecurity in the country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I appreciate what the Government is doing in terms of bringing Bills to this House. One of the Bills that I appreciate is the one on political parties. We will not go far in our democracy if we do not strengthen political parties. This is one of the Bills that should be given priority in this House, so that we can come up with an orderly way of running political parties and not the chaos that exist right now where you do not know who is in the Government and who is not. As we have complained, we have people from this side sitting on that side and vice versa. When we streamline political parties, we will be able to know where one's loyalty is. That is very important for us. A Speech like this one has to be commended because it is an input of some people, but the Government should not forget the less represented people and the marginalised people. Let us not talk about only the rosy side. We should bring out what the Government is doing to lift the lives of the people such as those in Kacheliba Constituency. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}