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{
    "id": 707812,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/707812/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 304,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I beg to move that the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, National Assembly No. 13 of 2016 be now read a Second Time. This Bill comes as a result of the Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity’s work around areas where cattle rustling has been prone in our country. Cattle rustling has been an issue that has often been viewed within the context of legitimising tradition, climate change and resource conflict. Increasingly, it was much more to do with organised crimes. There is a rising demand for meat products and attendant political violence that result from the devolved system of government, which is established under the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. The human cost of cattle rustling is indeed immense. Hundreds of people are killed every year and thousands have been forcibly displaced. Cattle raids by young men involve attacks on rival ethnic groups or clans and, at times, raiders come from neighbouring countries such as South Sudan. We have also had issues from Ethiopia. Many Members from those areas will tell you that the traditional cattle rustling did not necessarily involve the kind of killing we see today. These days, it has become invariably lethal and it is no longer the traditional cattle rustling where you would raid a neighbouring village to get some cows for dowry without killing anyone per se. It is very unfortunate that conflicts in the North Rift region of Kenya have been accepted to be part and parcel of a pastoral culture and livelihood of the resident communities. For example, conflicts between the Marakwet and Pokot communities; and the Turkana and Samburu are deemed to be resource-based resulting from competition of pasture and water. It is with these considerations that the Joint Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity together with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) undertook tours in order to address the issue of cattle rustling through amendments to the Penal Code to prescribe punitive sanctions against cattle rustling and the stealing and handling of stolen livestock and livestock produce. It is no longer what it used to be. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, thousands of people are dying. If you came with us on our tour – I know you have a heart for the people - your heart would be bleeding because of sad stories of the killing of hundreds of women and children. Their bodies are normally found mutilated. Many young children have become orphans. The sad thing in this country is that these killings happen in Loruk, Nginyang in Baringo, Lokwar and Nakuse, and yet we see it as normal. Such stories never hit the front page of our newspapers. If this was to happen in Kisumu, Nyeri or Mombasa, that 60 people have been killed in a raid, it would cause national outrage. These people kept asking us: “When you go back to Kenya, please, tell them we need security on this side.” They do not see themselves anymore as Kenyans because of the manner in which we decided to be lax about what they go through. I will now move to the specific clauses in this Bill, which I will ask my good friend Hon. Abdullswamad to second; he can do so by just bowing. There was a case where about 1,000 head of cattle were stolen in Samburu. Two days later, it was said that the cattle could not be traced. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, you and I come from Nairobi. When five cows are moving, everyone notices them moving. You even see dust. What would happen in the case of 1,000 cows? What we realised is that those cows are stolen and slaughtered immediately. The carcasses are put in trucks and transported to other places. The meat you eat in Nairobi from places such as Dagorreti Corner, Kiamaiko and what not, a lot of it is the product of cattle rustling. The meat that goes to Mombasa, Mheshimiwa Abdullswamad; some for export and some for local consumption, comes from those areas where people have been killed. It is time we 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."
}