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{
    "id": 736596,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/736596/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 229,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Ombaka",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1007,
        "legal_name": "Christine Oduor Ombaka",
        "slug": "christine-oduor-ombaka"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this Bill. It is true that a government that cannot feed its people has failed. Food is critical and is an essential basic need for every human being. If you cannot put food on the table, and your children are going hungry, then the Government has failed you. A family that cannot eat cannot go to school or get medical care because they have failed to get the basic need. This is a very important Bill because once we know the root cause of inflation in this country and we are able to identify what we can do to salvage our people, we will know the way forward. I just want to support this Bill in terms of the fact that we looking for ways in which people can eat and be healthy because without food you cannot be healthy. For a long time ever since I came to this Parliament, we have been talking about improving the livelihoods of our people, fighting poverty and insecurity and providing education, medical care and many things. We are just about to close Parliament and go back for the next elections and the problem of lack of food has not been sorted out. That is why I feel so committed to this Bill because we must leave this House with ideas on how we can feed our people, go to school and get jobs. These are the very fundamentals of life. If we cannot achieve them now, we can say that the Government is closing the four years we have been here without achieving anything. We must accept that the Government promised many things, which we have looked forward to but we have seen nothing. Now, we have three months to go and the Government is still lamenting that there is no food for our people. It must be accepted that the Government has failed. Once you fail, then you come up with a proper strategy. Strategies have been laid here but we must highlight the reasons why we do not have food. It is not that we do not have farms where we plant crops such as maize but we do not know how to manage the food sector. We have not been able to manage the agriculture sector yet we know this country depends on it. We have so many people depending on agriculture and they do their very best but they do not get enough inputs. Many people back home ask me to buy fertilizer for them. As a politician, you try your best to buy fertiliser for those who ask you, but the question remains: Why am I being asked to buy fertiliser for the people I represent? Why can they not get fertilisers? The argument has been that fertilisers are too expensive for them. They say that fertilisers have disappeared and are not in the market to be bought. They write down their names somewhere and after two weeks, they are called to collect the fertiliser. We have a 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."
}