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"content": "mentioned, a lot of the destruction occurred to our infrastructure; roads and bridges have been washed away by the floods, and that is the reason why costs have continued to increase. It is no longer possible for the Roads Department to predict or to quantify accurately the amount of money that they need because the figures they give today differ again tomorrow, because there will be some destruction taking place overnight as the rains continue. So, Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have provided funds to the Ministry of Roads. We had estimated Kshs2 billion in January/February, but it has increased. We also have budgetary constraints, because all this is happening in the middle of a financial year, and most of this was not expected. But a lot of repair work is taking place. In some areas where it is not happening, we were told yesterday by the engineers that because of the wet conditions, they cannot send out heavy equipment when the ground is still wet. So, they are basically just creating diversions and waiting until it dries up so that, then, they can embark on more permanent repairs of the damage that has taken place. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the hon. Member for Mosop wanted us to resettle people who live on the Nandi Escarpment before afforestation can take place. I want to inform the hon. Member that we do not have to resettle people; that can take place even when people are there. That is what I saw in Rwanda. What has happened? The people were only moved to one section. People now live in settlements instead of being scattered all over, that is people building homes here, there and there, thereby making it impossible to carry out a systematic afforestation exercise. Again, it is not possible to provide proper services for people when they are living in such a scattered way. We cannot provide electricity, water or even build a school for them. It is, therefore, necessary for us to begin to do what has already been effectively done in Rwanda, to move people in settlements so that land remains to be farmed communally and do terracing properly to stem the tide of soil erosion on land which is inclined. We are soon going to be discussing with hon. Members the idea of communal labour to conserve the environment. In the colonial days, we had one day in a week set aside for people to voluntarily go and work on the land consolidation exercise. This is not land consolidation, but land terracing exercise. People used to donate free labour for the purpose of conservation of soil. This no longer happens and we are in serious danger. We, as a Government, will begin discussions among our people to see if it is possible to introduce the exercise which was discontinued at the end of the colonial times. Hon. Member for Kinangop talked about the statements made by the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources. These were good statements. They are a declaration of the intention of the Government. Just as I have said, these are some of the issues which we are initiating which require involvement of the wider leadership and not just the Government in order to involve people in the exercise. When we say that every farmer should donate 10 per cent of his or her land for tree planting, that is a statement that requires discussions to be implemented. When the Minister asks people to uproot blue gums along the river beds, that is a good intention. However, that cannot be done by the Government alone. There must be involvement of people in this kind of exercise. So, we require a wider involvement of leadership of this country to implement some of these good intentions. With regard to hon. Muokiâs question, yes, I have said that we are living between two disasters of drought and floods, El nino and La Nina. We are taking measures to"
}