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{
    "id": 440569,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/440569/?format=api",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "It is true, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir; we were with these people and they can vouch for it. We went round and we decided that if the other Kenyans are sleeping with cockroaches, then we will proceed to sleep with cockroaches too; and I assure you that I slept quite comfortably. But having said that, that is not the sort of place we would recommend for others, but we did that because we had no choice. As a Committee, we felt that unless and until we go to those places and visit the ground, then we cannot make headway. But, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there is also hope, because when we went to Tana River County, one of the things we found was that the people were very excited about devolution. We found that they had reserved 500 acres to be the county government headquarters. Looking into the future, they could tell us “this is where we are going to build the polytechnic;” because they had the land. As you know, Tana River County is a very big county; they have a lot of land which they have reserved for institutions that they are going to build. That does not surprise me at all. Indeed, in a few years time, the areas that are neglected today are the ones that will look better. This is because they will be starting from scratch, they will not be bringing down anything, and they have the budgets. If you look at the World Bank analysis of counties and budgets, you will see that while some counties are operating on deficit, such as Nyeri County, others like Tana River have good surpluses that they can use to develop the institutions that they want to build. One of the things that we found out was that the school feeding programme died a while back. We were very ashamed when we visited one school because of what Sen. Boy Juma Boy has said here. Emphasis has been given to primary schools and ECDs have been forgotten. Children in ECDs walk very long distances. They walk with their brothers who are in Standard 8 because they cannot walk on their own. Therefore, these children stay in school until the Standard 8 children are ready to go back home with them in the evening. Meanwhile since the Standard 8 children are candidates for national examinations, they are given porridge. The children in kindergarten are given nothing. In fact, at one time, hon. Karaba, I, hon. Boy Juma Boy, and Sen. Daisy Kanainza raised money in a classroom and told teachers to buy food for those children, at least for that day, so that they remember that Senators were around. We did"
}