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"id": 282394,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/282394/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. C. Kilonzo",
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"speaker": {
"id": 46,
"legal_name": "Charles Mutavi Kilonzo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on civic education, the President emphasized the importance of having massive civic and voter education to educate people on the new Constitution and the electoral system. However, you remember the last time we had a referendum in Kisumu, when the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) went to do civic education, the citizens of Kisumu said that they had been told that if one person has read the Constitution then that was enough. Politicians should not be the ones doing civic education because they will read the law selectively to favour what they want to pass over to the electorate. Civic education should not be a one day or two day affair, as it was at that time. Civic education needs to be done for close to three months. I do not understand how that old lady and old man in the village is going to be told that she or he is going to elect six people at the same time. This is a very complicated affair which needs more time; so as to educate the electorate for the benefit of democracy in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is unfortunate that four years after the post-elections violence of 2007/2008, we are still talking about Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). In addition to the post-election violence IDPs, there is a new brand of IDPs, namely, urban IDPs. These are people who have been displaced from particular areas, from which they have been evicted. This issue needs to be addressed. I recall that when the NARC Government took over in 2003, they promised to provide 100,000 housing units every year. What has happened since then? If from that time this had been provided, today we would be talking of over a million housing units that have been provided. Therefore, the Government needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better housing policy to ensure that even the poor people of this country have acceptable shelter as opposed to living in slums. If you have not been to Mathare and Kibera slums, you cannot imagine that indeed there are people living there. If we had a proper housing policy, this problem would not be as serious as it is today. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in Nairobi, we have a crisis of traffic jam. Only the other day, a motorist died in his car, having stuck in a traffic jam for three good hours. I suppose he died of high blood pressure. Every time there is a single drop of rain in this city, we have heavy traffic jams. You stay on the road for close to six hours. The Government needs to address the problem of traffic jams within the City Centre and in other major urban areas. This problem is becoming unbearable. It is very costly to do business in a city where traffic jams take so long to clear. We hope that the Government will act very fast to open up the missing links within the city centre to ensure that this problem is addressed quickly. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I expected a better commitment from the Government when it comes to the issue of employing teachers. The Government has said that it is going to employ 10,000 teachers. We are talking about a shortage of 60,000 teachers. The Government needs to come out clear on the policy of education. There is no point of having a free education system and have no teachers. The end result will be the same – poor results. So, it is crucial that the Government comes out very clear on this matter. The Government needs to employ at least 20,000 teachers every year for the next three years and solve the problem of teacher shortage. It will also create employment. It will be a form of economic stimulus package. What is the point of having superhighways for use by only a few rich people? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we keep on talking about famine all the time. Constituencies such as Yatta have a lot of agricultural potential. I would have expected such constituencies to get over Kshs2 billion each for irrigation. I might be one of the few lucky Members of Parliament because I am going to get a water dam, which is being constructed for that purpose but what about other parts of this country? The Government needs to invest more in irrigation as opposed to investing in relief food supplies. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}