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{
    "id": 92624,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/92624/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 395,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Letimalo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 68,
        "legal_name": "Raphael Lakalei Letimalo",
        "slug": "raphael-letimalo"
    },
    "content": "will be able to get some income and put it into proper use instead of engaging themselves in cattle rustling. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my major concern is the way the Government handles or deals with communities affected by cattle rustling. The Government must be seen to be fair and not discriminative when it handles issues of cattle rustling. Just as we have acknowledged that cattle rustling is an old phenomenon, we have had a traditional way of handling cattle rustling amongst the communities. For example, when animals are stolen and they are pursued by the people, once the footprints lead to a given village or a community, it is the responsibility of the village elders and the community either to produce the cattle thieves or to pay for the stolen animals. That one has been accepted all over. But the way the Government is handling it now, there is a lot of unfairness and discrimination. I am particularly concerned with what happened in February 2009 when the Government carried out a security operation in Samburu East targeting one community where over 200 security personnel were deployed backed by military and police choppers. They went to water points where livestock were drinking water, rounded up livestock from the water points and the grazing fields. They seized 4,116 head of cattle from innocent families, drove across the border and distributed them to other communities while the claimants and the owners of the livestock were not even given an opportunity to identify the stolen livestock from the herds that were impounded by the security personnel. They were just distributed. The Government was not concerned on what was going to happen to those families whose livestock had been taken given that the pastoralists entirely depend on livestock for their livelihood. We have now had children who have dropped out of school because the Government has made the communities in Samburu East poor. They depend on livestock for medical care, school fees and for their own foodstuffs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have a list here which I want to table of the 86 families whose livestock were taken and amongst them are Government officers. I do not want to imagine that a Government officer can abandon his or her responsibilities to go and steal animals. Ordinarily, a woman cannot engage in cattle raids. But here we have several widows whose livestock were taken by the Government. The Government had no reason whatsoever to round up the livestock without establishing whether they belonged to morans or responsible person who could not go to raid. Amongst them is a 76 year-old man, a retired army officer who used his pension to invest in livestock and all his 72 head of cattle were taken away. I think that is really unfair. I beg to support that the Government should compensate the innocent families that have been made poor and children who have dropped out of school."
}