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{
    "id": 777248,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/777248/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance. From the very onset, I want to state that I support the Motion on the Adoption of Sessional Paper No. 2 of 2016 titled‘ The National Slum Upgrading and Prevention Policy’. This is a very important and well thought out document although, in my opinion, it is coming out quite late in the building of our nation. These are things that we should have done a long time ago, the minute we realized that our capital city was getting overcrowded. This should have been done when people moved out of the rural settings, set foot in this city and realized that it was not all rosy as they may have thought. As the Government, such policies should have been set out early. If that had been done, we would have prevented many of the things that we face as a city. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the unfortunate thing is that these challenges are not only being experienced in Nairobi, but in almost all of our 47 counties. If you go through most of our county headquarters, without fail the hallmark of what defines the county headquarters is the presence of a slum; which is quite unfortunate. It is important that the Government has thought through and come up with this Sessional Paper and we should support it. But we should support it with the hope that they have put prudent thought to it and that they have the will and the intention to push through this information that they have set out in this Sessional Paper. They should ensure, first of all, that we reverse the ills and the difficulties that we continue to experience in most of our cities. Secondly, we should prevent a recurrence of the same. The most unfortunate thing about us and the people who, at many times are in positions of leadership and management of different organisations and even cities like our own, is that they do not seem to learn from history. When Nairobi was being set up, there was good thought that was put to it by the initial batch of city planners. These planners even considered that in any growing developing country like Kenya, you will have various strata of society; the well to do and the not so well to do. It is in that context that we had the initial Nairobi being set up with places where the extremely wealthy could live and estates where the not so well to do members of our society could find a decent home, connected to clean piped water and good social amenities. However, what happened over time is regrettable because we did not match the initial intention, realizing that we had a growing population. We have let people to crowd in these settlements. The nature of human beings is such that when there is struggle for natural resources, then humanity and consideration of other basic facilities that people are supposed to share becomes secondary. People then begin to adapt to the hard life. It is unfortunate that we have the kind of situation that we find ourselves in. Urban poverty is one of the most dehumanising things that exist in the 21st Century. 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."
}