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"content": "happy with it. Those are very decent, simple and effective houses with all the facilities that they need. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I have already said that Kenyan cities and towns are centres for industry, education and culture. For your information, 34 per cent of Kenya’s population resides there. Therefore, if we do not stem off rural-urban migration, the net effect is that this percentage will go up. If it goes to 50 per cent or beyond, then we render those towns and cities ineffective. They will be reduced to just a mass of people in a settlement with so many problems, difficulties, no services, educational institutions, health centres, water provision and electricity; it will just be a sordid state. We should, therefore, be very careful in handling these slum developments and particularly in stemming off rural-urban migration. There must be a balance. What does that mean? It means that we must equally generate development agenda for the rural people who are agricultural. This will enable them to also occupy and create centres of employment for our youth in the agricultural sector and other amenities that may stem up at the rural level. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is these towns and cities which contribute 60 or 65 per cent to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So, if we run them down, our GDP will drop. Sen. Nyamunga will then know that there will be no income being generated from these ineffective, mass informal settlements or from these slums. They will just be living a subsistence life without generating any income. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the 900 units in Kibra have 230 business stalls, a nursery school, a social hall, toilet blocks and a boundary wall, thus making them secure. One of the things that we want to do is to make sure that the inhabitants of those upgraded slums have a secure stay in their residences. But if it is a place that is vandalised left, right and centre, it then becomes a centre for hooligans coming to harass peaceful citizens, making them unproductive in whatever they are doing. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, what does this policy then mean? Although it is late and the new urban agenda is already in place; our work is now to enrich it so that it becomes a living document for this country to shop around for international support. This is because the fund which is going to come from the new investors, if we take on board spatial planning, infrastructure, provision of schools, social centres and any other goods that I talked about earlier, the investment coming to these centres will be important. They will then add value to the general GDP that we are talking about because they will be centres of raising our GDP because they are involved in economic activities. But if they are just mere slack slums, their input will just be to generate solid waste which then becomes a big hazard for the society staying there. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I therefore want to commend this Policy Paper so that we can enrich it as a shopping basket for international funding through the Global Cities Initiatives and many other willing supporters of these kind of programs. The supporters who are willing to come on board to upgrade slums are available so long as we have sound proper planning that will take into account some of these things that we have already proposed in this Policy Paper. I would expect that sooner or later, the government will come up with the Bills within our counties to bring spatial planning not only in Nairobi, but also cascading it 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."
}