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    "id": 543855,
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    "content": "on. This is becoming more common. That is why the issue of how they are appointed becomes very critical. A village elder must have the absolute confidence of the members of the village, if he has to be successful. Even if the Public Service Commission delegates to the chief, it should not be seen that the chief is the boss of the village elder by appointing and making recommendations to appoint so and so. A system must be devised in which the villagers have a say on who should be a village elder. They know themselves very well who to appoint as the village elder. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, what this Bill is trying to do is what we did in the National Assembly; to try and give these village elders some token for the important work that they do. Proposals have been put here, and I am sure that if the Commission on Salaries and Remuneration (CSR) did its work properly, they should come with a scheme, where they will lower the salaries of some of us in the executive, in Parliament and in the Judiciary, and let the savings pay the people who matter at the grassroots level, that is, the village elders. In amending Section 15 of the Act, you can see that each of the officials there are not just confined to matters of national security. That is the County Commissioner, Deputy County Commissioner, the Assistant County Commissioner and the assistant chief. They are not just concerned with matters of security but also matters of national functions. Of course, when you put the village elder there, he will also be concerned with matters of national functions. It may be that at that level in the village, there may be an elder – from what I heard on the practice in Rwanda – who is responsible for security issues. There may be another elder who is responsible for the management of a particular project in the village and whom people trust because of his education and other issues that he can manage that particular project. There may be another elder who is just responsible for land disputes and whom people know that he has expertise in this area. Let us not assume that there can only be one village elder per village. In as much as the County Commissioner has people who man the various national functions reporting to him, the village elder also has to have a system of dealing with the various aspects in the village and it cannot be like the County Commissioner where people report to him. It can only be, may be, by appointing another village elder to deal with the various specialized work that goes on in the village. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support this Motion because when I was campaigning to be the Senator, I met everybody even the chiefs and sub-chiefs. The sub-chiefs came to me and said that I was forgetting the most important component of our administration and that is the village elders. I was supposed to meet village elders of the various areas in Busia County. One request that they made was that they be recognised. I hope they are listening and by supporting this Bill by Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo, I have fulfilled my manifesto when I said I will go there and fight for you to be recognised and be given kitukidogo for the good work that you are doing. I hope that the Senate will approve this amendment unanimously. Thank you."
}