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{
    "id": 442719,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/442719/?format=api",
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    "content": "(Prof.) Kindiki): Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I rise in support of this Motion. First and foremost, I thank Sen. Halima for bringing this Motion. The problems that are associated with the arid and semi arid areas are long standing. They have been there since the colonial times. I am afraid that unless, we, as a country under the new Constitution move swiftly to correct the problem of marginalization of certain parts of this country, it is impossible to create a united Kenya; a country where every citizen can feel that they belong to the same country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the kind of challenges that Kenyans go through in some parts of this country sound like folk tales when they are told to other Kenyans in other parts of the same country. The purpose of the new Constitution was to correct the historical marginalization that is a consequence of a bad Constitution that we have had since 1963. But more importantly, is to correct the social economic policies that we have pursued in the implementation of the Constitution that we had before 2010. In particular, I have great challenges with Sessional Paper No.10 of 1965. Every time I look at the inequality in this country, it points to the thrust of that policy paper which – with all due respect to its crafters. I am told the former President of Kenya, hon. Mwai Kibaki and the late Tom Mboya were some of the people who crafted that policy. There is one area where these great sons of Kenya – and I hope there were daughters also – made one grave mistake. This mistake was to advance a narrow view that to create a prosperous country, all you needed to do was to concentrate on what they called “high potential areas.” They drew an imaginary line just above Malindi, joined that with Meru, left out Isiolo on the other side all the way to Mt. Elgon. If you look at that map downwards or southwards, it is less than a third of the territorial size of Kenya. The rest of Kenya or two thirds north of that imaginary line was left to its own devices and to the vagrancies of under development. Of course, the Kibaki administration tried to do a few roads outside that area. However, the railway and the major trunk roads are concentrated south of that imaginary line. Education wise, until recently when universities have moved out, all the universities and all the great national schools were also concentrated there. So, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I support this Motion. This is a Motion that should actually even give rise to amendments of the Basic Education Act, so that this obligation becomes lawful. But there is need for us to define which counties these are. At the moment, when you say ASALs, almost every other county – a part of Tharaka Nithi, for example, is ASAL. So, we need this to be clearly defined. We can even name the counties. We know the counties that have really got a raw deal from the previous Constitution. They got a very raw deal. We need to name them because there is nothing wrong in doing so. I am sure this is something that we are willing to compromise on so that if my county is left out, then I should be in a position to comfortably say at least my county is better than Turkana County or Mandera County. 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."
}