Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 674941,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/674941/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 52,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Njenga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1510,
        "legal_name": "Francis Kigo Njenga",
        "slug": "francis-kigo-njenga"
    },
    "content": "Most of the money that we are giving to our young people has gone to waste, for example, the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) and the Uwezo Fund. The people of Gatundu North Constituency have not been trained in anything else other than growing coffee, tea and dairy farming. Imagine what fish farming would be like if such information was available everywhere. We sometimes overexploit our seas and oceans to an extent they become of no economic use. Recently, there was such an overexploitation in Lake Naivasha which is a fresh water lake. Time has come for information to be made available to our people in the right order, quantity and quality, so that our country can move from the known to the unknown. The future population of our country is known in terms of we are going to be more than we are today. We are a young country which requires increased subsectors for improved livelihoods. Huge losses are being incurred because of failure to add value not only in fish farming, but in many sectors. For example, people in my constituency will grow pineapples and because we have never thought of value addition, people will buy them and add value in Nairobi by producing juice. If we have fish farming industries in Central Kenya, Nairobi, Kajiado and other areas, we can establish industries and create employment for our people. More importantly is the issue of preservation and wastage. This country is wasting a lot of its produce. We waste excess harvest any time we have a bumper harvest yet preservation and storage can be made easy. I recall the time when there was the Ministry of Cooperatives and Marketing with an agenda of preservation of our food products. Today, most of these functions have been devolved. Devolved or not, we need a national policy, roadmap and strategy that will enable our people to know when and what to produce in future. Recently, I put up a proposal before the Budget and Appropriations Committee that we need a Minimum Guaranteed Return (MGR) policy to deal with unemployment once and for all. Whatever Government will be there, we need to work on youth unemployment. Also, agriculture should now be emphasised in our secondary and primary schools. Said or not said, we must eat and drink. If you look at our school curriculum, it does not emphasise the importance of agriculture as was done after Independence. Today, we emphasise other things. Agriculture should be a compulsory subject. This happened to Kiswahili in the past and people like me never studied Kiswahili in school. Probably that is why I cannot pronounce „r‟ and „l‟. It reminds me of „elections‟ and „erections‟. It is a problem that is in me. I should have been taught Kiswahili properly. Currently, Kiswahili is an important subject in our curriculum. Why not agriculture yet human beings must feed? Why can we not have an institution that will work across the board in constituencies and counties to secure food security in our country? It is healthy to eat fish and chicken. Most of our people now know the importance of fish and the nutrients it gives to the body although we need to also eat other types of meat. There are communities that rely on dairy and other types of farming. The national Government should take this urgently. Our technical training institutes should start training fish farming and other related courses. The NGCDF should set aside some money to train fish farming to pupils and students in primary and secondary schools. By so doing, we can make them self-sustaining. There should be a kitty to fund such training, so that every primary and secondary school has a fish pond from which they can rear fish and sell to supplement their income. The NGCDF cannot continue giving money to institutions which do not generate any revenue for themselves. These institutions should generate some revenue, so that they can allow the Government to develop this country. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}