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{
    "id": 722615,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/722615/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 316,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "What next for these people? It is as if we are dealing with a desperate region. The Government should provide physical and fiscal facilities so that people in those areas should be seen not to be neglected by the Government. We have swamps like Lorian in Ewaso Nyiro River. The river has an internal delta. In Garissa and Wajir areas, those swamps should be developed so that people can have other sources of income apart from livestock. When that happens, we will be attending to agricultural activities away from pastoralism more so when the climate is harsh. Reducing the number of livestock or moving them to other areas during the very hot dry times like now can be planned. We should know that during a certain month, areas in the north will be dry. We should not wait until it gets dry. People should be recommended to move. We should have proper and well controlled transportation of animals so that they are sold before they are too emaciated to move on the ground. That is one problem we are facing. Therefore, the Government should be involved in advising and introducing insurance to the pastoralists so that they can also earn a living. They should wait for livestock to fatten. That is when they can sell them to neighbouring abattoirs. Some of the areas should also have refrigerated wagons so that the animals are slaughtered on the spot and transported in refrigerated form to the consumers in markets in Nairobi, Mombasa and so on. In the absence of that, people will be so desperate that anything coming to them will be up for grabs. The situation can be dire, for instance, children are not in school, parents have no other economy to depend on apart from pastoralism which is nomadic and children have not been taught how to respond to certain changes in the environment. This has taken Kenya 50 years to deal with. This is not good for a developing nation. This is not the only county facing such problems. As I said earlier, there are other countries like Upper Volta, Guinea, and Senegal but they have ways to tame the environment. That is even one region stretching all the way to Kenya. They have managed to contain their people and control diseases. If they have managed to detect and foretell that a time will come when there will be shortage of rainfall or no rainfall at all, there should be respective people who should guide the pastoralists. This will ensure that the pastoralists do not live in a hand to mouth economy. They should earn a living like the rest of the Kenyans. Madam Temporary Speaker, we need not overemphasize what the Government will do or the amount of money to be used in putting up fences or buying wires. That can be controlled if the Government is serious enough to get to the people and advise them on how to cope with the environment and prevent such menaces from arising as a result of either terrorism or change of climate. That is what we should encourage. Madam Temporary Speaker, we should also encourage the residents of the dry areas to adopt other activities like agriculture. In Mandera, for example, some residents are moving into agriculture. As a result, they have avoided many problems associated with pastoralism. That is what should be encouraged. The Government should come up with a blueprint of developing dry and arid regions. In Sweden and Norway, people live in harsh conditions, but they are assisted by their governments. If you go to Greenland and Iceland the climate is harsh, but people are assisted because they cannot move away. Therefore, the Government should identify with the people of the northern region, so that 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"
}