constituency public hearings, mandera east ... - ConstitutionNet

25mambo “ harakisha hii kitu, maliza maliza” Hata na sisi tumekataa tumesama lazima tuende tuone wananchi, watu wangemaliziahio Katiba Nairobi, lakini sisi ndio tumekataa. Na aya mambo ya kutupatia ndege tukuje Mandera, ni kwa sababu, lazimatumalize. Kama ungekuwa uwezo wetu tungekuja na barabara tutebee kwa vijiji tuwe na Wanakenya ndio tuone shinda zao.Si kwa ubaya.Mheshimiwa: About the issue of constituency and population, I think that is not always a major factor and I have taken timeto explain that. The issue of population is geographical, communication and other issues. We will give a letter, I think a veryvery strong letter on that as Members of Parliament from North Eastern Province. Our opinion is this, the issue is aboutrepresentation, I said, effective representation. You must represent every person who voted for you, and a Member ofParliament must have access to that person. When I say, a member in developed constituency, or a smaller constituency, hasan access to his constituents, in a lesser time, in a lesser period, in a quicker time, it takes different times for me to get that voterI represent, to hear his views.I gave you an example, of Mandera East. If I have to go and get, atleast a majority of those who voted for me, it will take me amonth. When it rains, I cannot even go. What has happened, now we have started developing these roads. When I wascampaigning in 1992, and in times of El Nino, I had to foot from Mandera to the last part of my constituency. This is about 160km long, and it took me more than 10 days. Forget about that, that’s not (inaudible). My constituency is about 160 km andabout 100 kms wide. It takes me, just travelling on that, just asking me for votes, and even those who voted, because ofcommunication, because of those problems, less than 40% voted. And even those who voted, its because of the sameaccessibility, people don’t even know or even have accessibility.What about my effective representation, and me how do I represent the views of these people? So I think the issue is not onlypopulation, the issue issue is about effective representation and that is what democracy is. We should use all those factors:geographical, communication, size of the constituency, and about effective representation because those problems anddevelopment, those marginalization, those problems. I have a smaller constituency myself, I will concentrate on the smallconstituents, develop better, reach better, represent those people better.When we have all those problems and all those things are not there, the communication is not there, the size is there, the peopleyou cannot reach them, then you are not doing effective representation. You are not like somebody like Raila, when you go toLangata, and everybody in three forums, everybody is here, and he gives whatever he wants to give to his people, ourGovernment policy, whatever, everybody is able to hear. For me I have to reach another village, I have to go to the interior, Ihave to go to another place, some places the roads are not there, I have to foot, I have to reach, so who will represent thosepeople I am not able to reach? So that’s the reason I have said, the population alone should not be a factor, because here weneed more constituencies.