HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 420531,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/420531/?format=api",
"text_counter": 185,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "General of Police will hardly be seen at a scene of robbery where criminals are brandishing guns. It is the young constables whom you will find there. There are many cases. I believe each and every Member here can narrate a story, like the one of my late friend, Constant Ong’ayo, who died in Bosnia. There are many young widows in my village whose husbands have died in the line of duty. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, what normally happens is that there will be a grandiose send-off. The police will come there and fire in the air 21 times. They will frighten villagers, and then after, that is the end of the story. Nobody hears about that family again. In fact, if the widow of such a slain officer lives in Government quarters, by the time they finish the burial and go back, she will find that the house has been allocated to another person. She has to vacate and leave to nowhere. Then she will now be at the mercy of all manner of middlemen and brokers, just to get the gratuity and terminal benefits which are a pittance. I have known cases where slain officers’ widows have taken ten years just to get payment of the terminal benefits of the husband of about Kshs100,000. In the meantime, thanks to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), sometimes, bursaries help. But they do not help enough. In the village, for example, a widow goes to a bursary committee and because of pressure of population and demand, for school fees of Kshs50,000, she is given a cheque of Kshs5,000. This is not even enough to shop for the child to go to school. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in a country where we have more than our fair share of violent criminals--- You have seen the battles that happen on the streets of Nairobi with bank robbers and visitation of the Al Shabaab to our security forces. Some are kidnapped and killed. Others are just shot at pointblank range. At the end of the day, a senior officer comes to the funeral and reads a rehearsed statement, saying that this officer has left a gap that will never be filled. As he is saying that, the woman is being evicted from the house and the gap that they are crying about has already been filled. There is somebody else already doing the same job. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, that is why I support this Motion. It is not the mistake of our patriotic Kenyans to join the forces. In fact, joining the forces is a patriotic duty. I have always thought and felt that we need compulsory military service for every young adult Kenyan, so that sometimes when it requires for everybody to be called upon, we can defend our country. You remember the stories of Mohammed Ali in the United States and how he was stripped of his title simply because he refused to go to Vietnam. A patriotic duty must be matched with responsibility from the State, to make sure that those who have volunteered to go and serve the country, died in the line of duty and widowed because their loved ones died in the line of duty, have to be treated as Kenyans who have made sacrifices and deserve to be given a better treatment than we have been doing. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we are not talking of a lot of money. The amount of money that is wasted in all manner of things in this country is a lot. For example, we have ghost workers. In some offices, you find ten people doing the job that can be done by one person. There are cases of people who go to Government offices, leave their jackets and come back in the evening to pick them and go away. We also have cases at City Hall of people who travel from upcountry just to get their salaries and go back. They are always The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}