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{
    "id": 797804,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/797804/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 178,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "getting new serial numbers from Kenya Power. The new serial numbers are coming with double or three times the bills they have been paying. This is not helping the ideals of the President in giving Kenyans Power through the Last Mile Connectivity Project and making sure that Kenyans enjoy a good life with cheap electricity. Food production in this country is a big issue. We have a Bill on this Floor about food and storage. If you look around the country, Kenyans have been made to believe or think that anytime there is a shortage of maize, there is no food in the country. We have a lot of food rotting by the roadside in many parts of the country. Go to Kisii, Bungoma, Kakamega, Nyeri and Karatina and you will find bananas, potatoes and so on. Women carry huge bananas in the morning and in the evening, because they cannot carry them up the hills to go back home, they give them away for free. We want to have a blueprint on how to process our food produced in the country – maize included, of course – but we have sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes and cassava. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you will be surprised to know that in Africa, today, more people live on cassava than maize, and we grow a lot of cassava in this country. It can be processed and dried with rudimentary technology. You can conserve your cassava using sunshine; you do not need anything else. You can then use it three, four or five years down the line. We need a deliberate policy on diversifying the foods that Kenyans live on, the manner in which we grow, add value, store and help farmers to export such foods to earn income. Security is a big challenge. I see the President saying that security in the country has improved tremendously. I do not know if he lives in this country. Security remains a major challenge to Kenyans. Yesterday but one, eight Kenyan soldiers were blown up to pieces by Somali bandits. We have said over and over and I repeat; that our mission to Somalia has long outlived its usefulness. We need to find a different mechanism of assisting Somalia to stabilize. Bring our boys and girls in uniform back home and let them defend the integrity of our frontier and border from our side, and prevent these bandits from entering our country and attacking schools and hospitals. Now, they have outgrown attacking civilians; they are now targeting the military and the police. If the military and police are under attack, you know the famous legal maxim; who will watch the watchers. That is the big question; who will watch the watchers? If the watchman is unsafe, how can those being watched be safe? That is the big question that we need to address. As I end, let me support the opening up of African trade by having an African trading block that the President talks about in this Statement. Africa today, with 1.2 billion people and over 60 per cent of the natural resources of the world, has a share of only five per cent of international trade. That is the share of Africa. Small countries like Korea have a bigger share of the international trade than the whole of Africa put together. Small countries like Singapore have a bigger share of international trade than half of Africa. Now that we are opening up Africa to trade with each other, it is incumbent upon us, as legislators, to start legislating inter-Africa free-trade-friendly laws, so that somebody coming from Uganda to cross the border and sell something in Kenya is not continuously harassed and treated like a smuggler. The word “smuggling” seems to have lost meaning. These days, anybody who crosses Namanga to Tanzania is a smuggler. If 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"
}