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{
    "id": 49054,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/49054/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 401,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mrs. Kilimo",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of Co-operatives Development",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 173,
        "legal_name": "Linah Jebii Kilimo",
        "slug": "linah-kilimo"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I thank God for enabling me to reach here on time. I really tried to drive very fast to reach here on time to contribute on this very important Motion. For once, this Motion really shows us what we have always known behind our minds; that, all people are equal, but others are more equal than others. I am saying this because I come from the Marakwet community which is near Turkana. For a long time, the Marakwet community has also been attacked but we got peace, thanks to the coming to power of His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki. However, our heart cries for the Turkanas because we do barter trade with them. Today, I am imagining the many widows and orphaned children in Turkana. They are orphaned by the gun and hunger. We are told that they were killed because they had crossed the border to look for food. My question to the Government is: Why do we have the National Cereals and Produce Board stores in Eldoret, Moi’s Bridge or even in Mombasa for the imported produce, and then transport it all the way to Turkana? If there is anything I wish this Motion should achieve, is the construction of food storage facilities in Turkana so that during the harvest season, food meant for the Turkanas is taken to Turkana so that they can just line up and get it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are also told that the Government intends to buy electricity from Ethiopia. If you look at the cost, you will be astonished. I would rather live in a dark room and use a lantern or firewood with a full stomach and be safe. Do we set our priorities right? Which comes first between life and light for the urbanized or those who are more equal than others? I belong to the Pastoralist Group of Parliamentarians. Many times, we have given a memorandum to His Excellency the President and the Prime Minister on what we want done, but it has never been honoured up to today. If it was to be honoured, it could have happened when Mr. Michuki was the Minister of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security. We told him that we wanted boreholes and so on and he even told us that they will deploy five Administration Police officers for every sub-chief and not even a chief. That means that in every sub-location, we were going to have five security personnel. They also told us that they would employ the Kenya Police Reservists (KPRs). They took our strong young men for training in the name of KPRs and up to this day, they have not been taken on board and given the responsibility to guard their people because they know their terrain. Instead, they would like the same vulnerable people to wait for security personnel from Nairobi, to be transported on a road that does not exist. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is high time that the Government took seriously, the issues of the communities living along our borders and their immediate neighbours. This is because when the Turkanas are attacked, definitely, some guns are left behind. They come to the Pokot and eventually find their way to the sedentary pastoralist community in the North Rift. We also want to know what became of the KPR issue. On intelligence reports, this Government never listens. It does not listen because it is a two-headed Government. I think our neighbours or people of bad will have known that there is nobody who listens."
}