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{
    "id": 584967,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/584967/?format=api",
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    "content": "we have some of the senior citizens in the villages. We need to provide an option. It is okay for those who can take care of their parents, grandparents and other senior citizens within their homes. However, we must appreciate that you will meet a lot of senior citizens in our families back in the villages who have no shelter and family members to take care of them. Therefore, it is important to bestow the responsibility of setting up some of the homes for the aged on our county governments. Nobody will uproot from the village my own grandfather or grandfathers of many of us to be taken to the homes of the aged. However, those who want and need them must be provided with the opportunity. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we must provide facilities that are friendly to senior citizens. For example, somebody aged between 80 and 90 cannot board some of the transport facilities because of the madness and lack of respect for rules on our roads. We are a society, in this country, that sometimes may not appreciate and respect the elders. I support this Bill that we have to provide for senior citizen friendly facilities. In this country, we have talked about disability friendly facilities although we have not achieved that. However, we need to appreciate that we have a lot of senior citizens at the age of over 90 who need special facilities to access certain facilities in this country; whether buildings or hospitals. Whether it is hospital or any other facility, we need to provide mechanisms that ensure that we are able to take care of these citizens. Sometimes when you go to the bank, you meet retired teachers at the age of 75 and above queuing and you find a young person in front of the queue and the elders have to queue for 30 minutes or one hour. I think as a country, we must enhance our morals and appreciate that some of these senior citizens require priority passes whether on queues during voting, access to medical services, banks or even at the airports. We should be a society that recognizes and considers the aged. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, one of the most disappointing things sometimes is to meet a retired civil servant, someone who worked for this country in their youthful age and contributed heavily to the development and advancement of this country, they contributed pension through the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) whether they were working in the military or as teachers but once they retire, it takes an eternity to get their dues. Sometimes you look at the kind of corruption scandals within NSSF, the pension schemes and you find that they have a lot of resources that sometimes the monies are available for them to be misused forgetting that these are savings of some of these senior citizens who will need them when they retire. Therefore, we must be a country that is conscious and we expect that NSSF and the other pension schemes will diligently manage the pension for our senior citizens so that when the time comes when they are in need of those resources, they are able to get them. We have seen teachers and retired chiefs trying to get their pension but it takes them about 10 or 15 years. Some of them die of preventable diseases as if they had no resources to obtain medication. It is sad sometimes when you attend a funeral of a person who worked very hard to try and get their pension but they did not succeed and the pension is paid well after their death. These are the challenges that our senior citizens are treated to. We must develop enhanced morals so that it is not just about the enactment of 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."
}