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{
    "id": 976373,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/976373/?format=api",
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    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I actually wanted to comment on the earlier statement presented by Hon. Katoo ole Metito. It is connected to what the Vice-Chair of the Committee on Health has spoken to. My only worry in this country is why we cannot be candid with each other and accept the obvious. The Chair of the Departmental Committee on Foreign Relations… I think the Government is saying that if they bring these students back home, they do not know where to put them and properly handle the issue. Just tell the country that, that is the position and then go ahead and help the students to live. If they are supposed to be in Wuhan, let them live there comfortably. Give them proper allocation of resources and continuously monitor their well-being. We get scared when we see our ambassador talking as if she has completely resigned to fate. It is causing a lot of panic to parents and relatives of the students out there. Therefore, I would have been very comfortable if we got a very candid response from the Government that we have no capacity as it is now. We are talking about Mbagathi where I think the spaces were twenty-something and Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) had 11 of them. The counties have been bragging that they have created isolation centers. I do not know whether they have that capacity because they do not even have the capacity to deal with Malaria. We know Malaria is killing people in Baringo and many other places. Therefore, I would have been comfortable, Hon. Speaker, if the Government came to the Committee and candidly told it that they are still preparing. We are readying ourselves to manage the menace or outbreak should it occur here. We need not lie that we have the capacity to handle the problem. It is not possible to remove our citizens from that country although many countries have already evacuated their members from that place. Therefore, I think the Chairs of both Committees need to hold these Cabinet Secretaries to account. They need to be forthright and tell us the truth. If we know the truth, then we will live with it but if we try to dodge and pretend that we have the capacity and yet we cannot evacuate… Some countries are evacuating their people from that place because they have the capacity to handle the possible eventuality. We do not have that capacity as a country and we should own up and say so. We have no capacity to handle the virus should it break out in Kenya and that is why we are being careful. If that was said to Kenyans, no Kenyan would push the Government to return anybody home. Instead we would push the Government to provide funding for them to survive wherever they are. Thank you, Hon. Speaker."
}