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{
    "id": 470477,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/470477/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 206,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "with agriculture and modernize it, you just have to invest in these young people who will drive our veterinary services and crop husbandry. Mr. Speaker, Sir, free maternity is not anything new. In fact, when I was in secondary school in 1970s, there was free health service in this country. The problem with us is that we centralized everything. The health centres and dispensaries used to be run by the counties those days. They provided public health and all the things that we are talking about as if they are new. The only problem is that we killed the county governments. We then called them the county authorities. We removed all the taxes from them and left them with market dues to run the government. It is good that we have now devised ways of providing revenue to them, so that they can run again. I hope that they will be more imaginative on how they can raise even more revenue to deal with the jobs that they have been given. Mr. Speaker, Sir, county governments cannot build roads. Anybody who talked of roads for county governments is dreaming. The roads that we are talking about are the feeder roads to reach the farms and water sources. A road is such an expensive thing that it cannot be done with Kshs5 billion. In fact, we are doing a road in my constituency of 43 kilometres and it will cost over Kshs5 billion. So, how do you expect a county to do a road? The road from Kitale to the border of Southern Sudan is not a road anymore. It is a cattle track and yet, it is the trade road that will take and bring goods from that side. Let me tell you something about roads. You cannot even build it with the 30 per cent that remains after we have paid teachers and policemen. Roads in India are now all privatized. They have said, for example, that the road from Mombasa-Kisumu-Malaba should be given to a businessman. That businessman maintains it and collects toll. That toll will maintain the road and we have the services. If you want to build a railway line, you cannot do so with the money that we collect here of Kshs800 billion. Give a railway line to another businessman. They are many businessmen who can build a railway line from Lamu to Southern Sudan or Mombasa to Uganda and Congo. But do not give it to a businessman like the one we gave the Kenya Railways; who does not even have money or technical capacity to run a railway line. Since they were given that railway line, they have done more poorly than the original Kenya Railways. Mr. Speaker, Sir, free maternity and any health problems, including problems that affect old people, are even more expensive, but can be done through a national social insurance. You will remember that we passed a Bill on national social insurance and took it to the President who refused to sign it into law. It was brought back to us with a memorandum that we make the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) an optional insurance fund. We refused that option and took it back to the President and it died somewhere. Kenya will not be saved without a national social insurance. Kenyans cannot survive with the kind of health problems and the cost of health in this country, especially if you have a problem with your heart, liver, kidney and other internal organs. You cannot afford it. It impoverishes very good Kenyans, but it can be sorted out because people will be pulling their resources together. But Nairobi Hospital, Aga Khan Hospital and other private health providers will not let you do that, because a national social insurance will bring the national hospital to their level and they will lose business. Kenya is being run by a cartel of business people who want us to die. We cannot just have the courage to do something about it. We are not complaining. We know where we want to 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."
}