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{
    "id": 4033,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/4033/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 312,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Shaban",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 139,
        "legal_name": "Naomi Namsi Shaban",
        "slug": "naomi-shaban"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. First of all, I want to congratulate Dr. Otichilo for bringing this Motion. I do believe the time has come for us to embrace geo- information. That is the only way forward for us. The Government has already embraced this concept. In almost all our primary and secondary schools, our children are studying Information Technology (IT). We have equipped our schools with computers. I believe we are moving in the right direction by promoting e-learning in our schools and other learning institutions. I do agree with all my colleagues who have spoken before me on the issue of information technology. We need to embrace this technology because it is useful in many areas, be they in health, land administration and management, gender development, security and safety systems. I just want to touch on a few issues before I conclude my contribution. The prevalence of diseases in our country would have been dealt with better if we embraced this technology. We could map areas where these diseases are prevalent and help our people to take the necessary precaution. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my colleagues have spoken passionately about land administration. Some of us who do not come from where the issue of squatters is a big problem may not understand this. Land issue is very emotive and we need to address it seriously if we have to move ahead in development. Currently, we have professional squatters because of lack of land administration system in this country. These are people who move from area to another. Everywhere they go, they are resettled. Because of lack of information, they keep on running from one place to the other looking for land to settle. If Government wants to resettle people, with the help of this system, it is easy to get their names. We can only deal with this problem if we have information system on land management. The other day we saw the Permanent Secretary looking for files which had moulds in the Ministry of Lands. Most of the officers were not amused because they were the ones who actually hid those files. It is important for us to embrace this technology to deal with such issues. I would like to address myself to tourism industry in this country. The branding of our country is so important. We cannot talk of how successful our tourism industry is if we do not talk about branding our country. There are countries with less attraction sites or animals but they are doing better than us. Why? It is because they know how to market their country. This can only be done if we aggressively market our country. We have to avail information about our country so that we attract more tourists. This country is rich in natural resources. However, this information is not available to many people because of lack of information system in this country. Most of our people and even tourists do not know what is available in Kenya. If we embraced this technology, we would go far in marketing our country as a tourist destination. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our air transport is not one of the best in the world. The other day, we were stranded in Marsabit for about three hours. We were on our way to North Horr Constituency. The pilot told us he could not land in Mikona. In fact, he took three hours finding information on that airstrip. The public officer who accompanied us assured him that, that airstrip had been rehabilitated and that we could land there, but he could not believe him. If we had this technology in place, we would not have taken that long. I did not blame him, he was trying to find information which he did not have. Finally, he had to overfly the place to see and confirm for himself that he could land. So, we landed in Mikona in North Horr Constituency. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have a Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in our country. At the moment, they have already started working on this information system. I do agree that we need to computerize all Government departments so that we share information. I will want to ask Dr. Otichilo to bear with us. We might not need that secretariat he was talking about because it is already in place. The Government will table a policy paper on the Floor of the House so that we embrace this technology. We do not need to duplicate our departments. The departments are there; they just need to be strengthened. I beg to support."
}