Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1025272,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1025272/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 319,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ijara, PDR",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Sophia Noor",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 375,
        "legal_name": "Sophia Abdi Noor",
        "slug": "sophia-noor"
    },
    "content": " Thank you so much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this chance. First and foremost, I must thank the members of the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, who have done a lot and have sacrificed their time going round this country to look into most of the dam projects. The Committee embarked on inquiring into the status of these dams in the country because of many factors. One of the factors that necessitated our looking into the dam projects is that every year we pump a lot of resources into dams. Other parts of this country do not have any resources. We approve over Ksh60 billion to these water projects, but there are many parts of this country that did not benefit from the resources. Those are some of the reasons. The other reason is that many Members of Parliament were asking about water in their counties and constituencies. The other reason we went to various parts of the country is that there was a national debate on dams that was going on in this country. So, as a Committee, we felt that we needed to inquire into the construction of those water pans. Immediately we went to the sites to look into those projects, we felt those projects were taking a longer period to complete because of various factors that we needed to highlight so that when government ministries plan for projects, they would be able to take into consideration the recommendations in our Report. Some of the challenges that made these projects take long was financial challenges. The other thing was the costly and open-ended model that was used. It is not a model that you can say is the best to be used in this country. The other challenge was poor planning from the start. You will see a project that you have gone and negotiated for resources, sat with donors and partners but you do not have the counterpart money from our Government to finance it. So, that again delays the project. The other thing is you have awarded the project but you do not have land. There is land crisis which gives the contractor a challenge. The resettlement and land allocation is in itself a nightmare for project implementation. That is why at the outset, some of the projects are poorly planned. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I had an opportunity to lead a team to Morocco to look at how projects work there and the dams they have constructed. I was shocked by the kind of projects that have been implemented and the kind of resources they use which is about 30 per cent of the resources that we use in Kenya. They use about 30 per cent of what we use and yet they complete all the projects which sometimes are bigger than the ones we implement in this country. We have given a recommendation that we need a directorate of engineering that can properly mobilise all engineers of this country. We have many engineers who are not doing anything and whose skills are not being used properly in this country. We are asking a directorate to be created where all engineers come and put their heads together so that we can have value for resources we allocate to some of the projects. Hon. Wamalwa talked of the NIB. Unfortunately, NIB…"
}