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"id": 565660,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Ongoro",
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"legal_name": "Elizabeth Ongoro Masha",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as I give my contribution in support of the Bill, I am skeptical. However, I believe that this time round, this kind of a Bill which is timely and appropriate will not suffer the gap that has existed in this country between policy formulation and implementation. We pass very good Bills; we have very good policies passed in this nation but implementation is the problem. I hope that this time round, just with a little bit of strategy, focus and facilitation including adequate budgetary allocation, we will ensure that this kind of a Bill is implemented. It is, indeed, a shame that 50 years down the line, a nation like Kenya is still discussing food security. We really do not have any reason to pride in being an independent nation when we cannot feed ourselves. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I have always been shocked to find, for example, processed fish on our counters when our own lakes and rivers produce a lot of fish. We have not just had the strength and the mental focus to put just a little bit of budgetary allocation in the right Ministry at the right time with the right emphasis to process our own fish. I was a Member of the Tenth Parliament which proposed an allocation to encourage people to start fish farming. However, there was no subsequent allocation to build or construct a processing plant that would encourage the finished product to be harvested and taken to a national plant for processing. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is really shocking that every year in this nation, we suffer drought. You will see pastoral communities losing thousands of cattle. We know that it will happen every year. Why would this Government – the Jubilee Administration – not find it reasonable to put aside some money to buy cattle in good time and construct a meat processing plant in the pastoral areas so that they can be slaughtered in time, processed and stored for redistribution to Kenyans in need? I do not understand why, for example, we do not have a fruit processing plant. We produce very many mangoes and other fruits in all parts of this country. Why are we not processing, for example, fruits from the former Eastern Province so that the issue of nutrition that we suffer every other time is sorted out? Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as long as this nation will not take it seriously to put enough resources towards the harvesting of water in other parts of this country that experience a lot of rain and even in other parts that experience drought and rain in equal measure so that we store the water and use it for irrigation, then this kind of food insecurity will persist. I do not understand, for example, why we still do not even have budgetary allocation for urban agriculture which is something practiced globally. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, sometime earlier this year, I was on a foreign trip and I found myself in a library over the weekend. It was very interesting to know that the relationship between poverty eradication – which we always put a lot money into – slum upgrading, insecurity, cattle rustling, environmental degradation and many other items 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."
}