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    "id": 526454,
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    "content": "Government. They know what is happening and the biggest question is when we are going to sit down and think critically on new ways of survival. If you look at the travels made by the Members of Parliament both by National Assembly and the Senate, they have gone all over the world but what is the value of all these visits if we cannot change our lives? Do we just visit to see and enjoy ourselves? If people have gone to Brazil, for example, with the Committee on Agriculture, whatever they saw was seen five years ago by others and nothing happened. We have gone to Japan and what we saw there five years ago is not there but we are still thinking of the Japan of five years ago. Time is now for us to decide as the Senate because I am sure, we will create a name if we say that whatever happens, the Senate is going to move in that direction. We should become a nationalistic House which will be considered as the only place where you can find nationalism. These are people who will not be thinking of profits and money they make outside there. When that time comes, we shall face our people and look them in their eyes. Nowadays in every centre of this country, we have cries of men and women working in the farming sector; both farmers and workers cry but we all expect to survive through them. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in India in 1954 they decided that their budget for everything else except medical or health the money will be put in agriculture for five years and now the 1.2 billion people are living better lives than Kenyans. If you go to China, you will not find beggars asking for food. In this country we have all the educated men and women; the best economists, best agriculturalists, best politicians, best engineers like you and so on but where are we going wrong? That is the biggest question we need to ask ourselves. What are we lacking? Is it that we do not have the mind after qualification or is it bought by somebody somewhere else? When we say our economy is improving, I do not know if we are talking about ourselves. You go to the villages and tell me where the economy has improved. These are people who cannot live comfortably because of human-wildlife conflict, lack of food, insecurity and so on. I think this is a trial. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I respect the brain of my comrade here, Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki, because he is also the founder of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). He is now coming to help us think about perishable products from our farms. This is a very good idea but let me tell hon. Members that this is not a matter of the National Assembly or the Senate. It is a matter of the so-called political parties and the leaders of those parties to decide whether time has come to change our thinking about this country. If this Council is formed, who is going to fund it? It will be sustained by farmers just like any other Council. The money we are trying to get for the farmers is to go and maintain employment somewhere. People will be employed to manage the so called Council and that money will be gotten from the farmers themselves out of their produce. So, we have to think critically whether we are in this country and whether we know what it is. Anything that you start they say “look at the county government now”. About 80 per cent of these county governments do nothing else except payment of the wage bill. Nobody can stand up from top to bottom to say: “Wait a minute; this is too much, when are we going to get the money to the people?” Nobody is asking that, but you hear us saying here on the Floor of the House that we want more money to go to the counties. We 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."
}