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{
    "id": 838313,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/838313/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 535,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Pareno",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13180,
        "legal_name": "Judith Ramaita Pareno",
        "slug": "judith-ramaita-pareno"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I rise to support this Motion. We have just come from some very long droughts and a lot of floods that we suffered last year to the beginning of this year, and many others that we have all seen. We saw what happened in the Solai Dam disaster and many collapsed buildings all over. They caused destruction to property, loss of lives and earnings for our people. If we do not come up with a strategy to finance how to deal with these disasters, then at all times we will not be preventive, but rather reactionary. We will be reacting to acts or omissions by human beings or even acts of God, like rains. We have had landslides and lost lives because of lack of proper management and handling of disasters. If I may speak on a personal level, last year we lost many livestock in Kajiado County. My nuclear family lost more than 50 cows, goats and sheep. It is very expensive to recover from that. We ended up losing so much because of the drought. During the drought, we spent a lot in buying hay and looking for water for the livestock. Immediately after the droughts, we suffered the floods. Even the restocking programme that the county tried to come up with did not materialize. There were complaints all over as they tried to restock and even buy the frail animals that were suffering from malnutrition at throwaway prices. The other day, I heard that those who gave their animals to the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) have not been paid to date. They tried to salvage the little they had by selling the cows to the KMC, which is on its deathbed. The restocking programme did not take off and if it did, it was of very little significance. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we should not wait until disaster strikes. We should not wait until the drought hits us hard or there is a fire and we are unable to control it. We should not wait until we lose people in collapsed buildings and then we cry about it. It is time that we had a strategy, not just to talk about financing, but what the finances will do. The finances should mitigate these disasters. In terms of financing, I am sure that there is a policy. All we need to do is finance and implement the intentions of that policy. When we visited Tana River County with the Committee on National Security, Defence and Foreign Relations, there were a lot of floods and people’s homes had been swept away. Schools and homes were flooded and swept away by raging flood waters. People were crying and there was no food. The county government and security apparatus were all running around, trying to distribute food since people could not reach the shopping centres because of the floods. Even if one did, the supplies were not there. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we found them distributing food. We should not just wait until too late in the day without that strategy that will enable us to have food when there is need for it. In fact, we were wondering why we were not flying choppers to drop food when we knew there would be floods and there was a transport problem. The trucks were stuck and could not reach the destination to supply food leading to a shortage where the floods had affected the people. We kept asking, “Did we not know there could have been a chance that we were going to have floods?” If we knew so, how come we did not provide for a chopper that could drop food for purposes of saving the lives of the people that were suffering? How The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}