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"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, Part VII is dealing with the Food Insecurity and Information Mapping Systems. Clause 35 (1) states:- “The Authority shall in collaboration with the Ministries responsible for finance, disaster management, agriculture, livestock, meteorology, planning, national security and gender, establish food insecurity and information mapping system to provide the information needed to develop and strengthen the capacity to respond to food emergencies.” That is exactly what we need. As I said earlier, there must be a place where you go in this country and ask, what is likely to happen in August? Which counties are likely to face starvation? What intervention mechanisms can we use to ensure that we mitigate the risks that are related?” The Meteorological Department and the Planning Department play a key role. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in other parts of the world, people take their Meteorological Departments seriously. However, for many years, we never used to take the weather forecasts seriously. In fact, I do not know whether they still present weather forecasts in the news anymore. It used to be mandatory when it was only the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC). It was obvious that somebody would come there with a stick, pointing at areas on a map and say, ‘it is going to rain,’ et cetera. However, nowadays, we do not take weather forecasts seriously. I do not think any segment of the news has it anymore. This is because we think it is unnecessary. Look at the Cable News Network (CNN), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Al-Jazeera and all the international media houses. They have weather forecast provisions in their news; and somebody is dedicated and paid to do that job. Why? Because weather forecasting is very important for planning; whether you want to travel or find out how to dress. In many countries in the world, before you leave the house, you check whether it is going to rain so that you know whether you will carry a sweater or you will go out with your t-shirt. Therefore, weather forecasts are part of planning, but here nobody even cares. You will just leave here and be shocked that it rained. However, anybody who cares about the weather and who wants to drive to Machakos will ask himself, “Is it likely to rain and flood?” Here, people would just go and they would meet with flash floods because weather forecasting is not taken seriously in this country. The Meteorological Department must be put where it is in terms of protection of the people. This is because it is very important when it comes to food security issues, starvation, floods and, of course, many other planning issues. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I am informed that the Meteorological Department acquired very good equipment in the recent past. That explains why we have been getting correct information from the weathermen and women serving in this department. How that information is processed and consumed in the public is important and it should be given the stature it deserves. This should not only happen when there are disasters, but even at any given time so that people can use it for their day-to-day planning. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, Clause (2) of Part 7 states that– “In performing its functions of (1), the Authority shall– 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."
}