Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 998578,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/998578/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1528,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ol Jorok, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Michael Muchira",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13461,
        "legal_name": "Michael Mwangi Muchira",
        "slug": "michael-mwangi-muchira"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to speak to this issue. I want to join my colleagues in congratulating the Budget and Appropriations Committee for the good job they have done. As my colleagues have said before, this is a unique budget which has been prepared under extraordinary circumstances. As the Leader of the Majority Party rightly put it, this pandemic has no known timeline. As a Member of the Departmental Committee on Labour and Social Welfare, I want to speak to the issue of the Inua Jamii Cash Transfer. This is a fund whose first lot was recruited in 2017. We have been pushing for recruitment of more elderly members who were left out. It is now three years since 2017 and many citizens have reached the age of 70. Many Members have been facing the situation of being asked by those senior citizens when they would be recruited into the Inua Jamii Cash Transfer Programme. The same applies to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) and people with severe disabilities. This House, therefore, needs to look into that issue to ensure that more money is availed to the Inua Jamii Cash Transfer Programme, so that our senior citizens, OVCs and people with severe disabilities benefit from it. On that note, senior citizens were promised that they would be covered by the National Hospital Insurance Fund. This, therefore, takes me to the issue of the universal healthcare whose pilot programme was launched in four counties. It is time the universal healthcare is rolled out to all the other counties, so that senior citizens who are not able to cater for their medical bills are rightly covered. The issue of pending bills is well addressed in the Report. However, of importance is the issue of institutions of higher learning and universities which deduct statutory deductions from their staff, but are not able to remit them. This is a time bomb which needs to be addressed. I hope the Departmental Committee on Education and Research, together with the Ministry of Education will address this issue, so that this matter is laid to rest. Finally, there is the issue of biased allocation of resources that has been addressed in the Report. The Member for Wundanyi has rightly put it that you find many infrastructural activities like roads in one area versus none in other areas. On electricity projects, you find one area is 100 per cent connected while in other areas like Nyandarua, connectivity is too low. We hope this matter will be addressed as we continue pushing for it."
}