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{
    "id": 930538,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/930538/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 255,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nambale, ANC",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Sakwa Bunyasi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": "continue to pass budgets only for people to become millionaires each time there is such an occurrence. You do not need rocket science to know why that happens. We have this opportunity to introduce this fund that has been amended, to accept gifts and donations. As a nation, I sometimes worry why we are putting out a basket for gifts and donations instead of saying that, these are critical expenditures and we need to forego other critical expenditures that we had planned for that are not of an emergency nature, and allocate their money to this emergency fund. That will mean we are truly willing to sacrifice resources from where we normally put them to where we shall now be putting them. When we go out there with a basket, we are asking to be given money. A few donors from out there will come and take care of that problem, but we will continue with our lives in the same way we were doing before the donation. There is no evidence in the last 50 years, except just the last few years, that roads have been constructed and improved. As we know, during emergencies of this nature, good roads are important. They help to facilitate movement of people. Things should not continue to happen the way they used to happen forever and ever. We need evidence that there has been sufficient technical information on how these communities have been coping and how they will cope moving forward. How do children cope with schooling when this happens? We know there is hunger, how does it happen? You can measure the extent to which people have been deprived of food. This year we had the most unfortunate occurrence when there were denials that people had died of drought. I come from Busia; we get people during hardship times because of hunger. Children go to school without getting square meals. Parents have to reduce the meals to one meal per day. It is worse in most drought-stricken areas and it is hard hitting than it was previously. To find people with brains and power or without them or with one of them arguing vehemently that nobody could have died of hunger… When you see a dead camel, probably a human being died before it because a camel is sturdy. We must be real. We have in this Parliament evidence-based policy making. We should have more of the same. We should listen to the people we work with, live with and are concerned with these issues on a day to day basis. Let us not be defensive. We are too defensive. In many of these drought-stricken areas, it is churches and other faith-based organisations that provide education, shelter, and food. We put our basket there. While it is there, we can turn our backs and do what we ought to do. Our eyes should focus on the ball. The ball happens to be the human conditions where drought is a problem. These drought-stricken areas are not only the prone areas as it has been traditionally said. As I said, a functional definition of these drought- stricken areas will help. The appropriations to this fund will be easy. It will be now easy for us to reduce many funds that are all over and channel them to drought management. Let us ensure that there is real commitment of the national Government to increase the resources that will improve the human condition in these drought-stricken areas. With those few comments, I support."
}