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{
    "id": 775949,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/775949/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 208,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Maanzo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2197,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Kitonga Maanzo",
        "slug": "daniel-kitonga-maanzo"
    },
    "content": "I would like to concentrate on the part of the development policy which the Government has put in place in Vision 2030. In the regime of President Kibaki, there was a very active system of making sure that poor people in Kenya accessed housing. It still goes to the upgrading project in Kibera slums and many other low-income areas. Part of the challenges was to identify the people who were there and where they would be moved to, and even the land utilisation. One of the areas I would like to concentrate on in this contribution is the role of cooperatives in housing. It appears in this Report that most cooperatives are now known to provide land. There are many housing cooperatives which also deal with land, and are able to provide land which is the basic necessity for one to construct a house. These cooperatives have also made an improvement such that they developing the land they have acquired as a cooperative society. People come together and acquire land. There is now a very good development by the Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (KUSCCO) Limited, which is the umbrella body of the Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) societies in Kenya. Several other SACCOs have housing projects for their members. If you go to the lower level housing cooperatives, we have quite a number in the country, and they are working to make sure that Kenyans have affordable housing. A study was done in India and it was found that when people are upgraded, the challenge is that we also have to change the thinking of the people. You know, life in a lot of slums is easy in terms of socialization and people are closer to one another. People help one another. Therefore, even when they are upgraded and moved to new houses, most of them want to continue living as before. In the case of the study conducted in India, people preferred to let out their new houses and moved back to the slums. At the end of the day, you find that you have not really transformed that particular person. Cooperatives could be a very big vehicle, if properly utilised. The subsector is now under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives. Cooperatives can be organised by people. People can come together and acquire land together or be granted land and the same land developed by putting their resources together without any Government input. This is also being practised in many parts of the world. It is part of the United Nations (UN) programmes on Housing. I believe it is one of the schemes Kenya could utilise. You do not also deal with the issue of housing without talking about a clean environment. There is a challenge now from the Sessional Paper which we debated yesterday. We need a proper environment. Even in this new National Housing Policy, we have a tree planting project which is going on. The trees will purify the air around where people have settled and where the Government intends to settle its people. This needs to be financed properly to be well programmed. I am glad to report that the new Principal Secretary in charge of housing will be vetted so that he can handle all the matters properly. As a Government ministry, the Principal Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary will work with all stakeholders from the United Nations, cooperatives, the local people and organisations in housing, so that we can provide the people of Kenya with decent housing."
}