Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1094034,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1094034/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 163,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Lang’at",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13189,
        "legal_name": "Christopher Andrew Langat",
        "slug": "christopher-andrew-langat"
    },
    "content": "The moment these revenue is shared effectively between the county governments and the National Government the people from those particular areas will see the importance of these resources and they will be able to even protect them. Madam Temporary Speaker, an example is when we were in Samburu, we saw some national animal reserves whereby the locals benefit because the owners do corporate social responsibility projects. You find that in those particular places there is a lot of harmony between the people managing the resources and the locals. There will be less cases of companies that are normally out to exploit those resources, including human resource. They is always a lot of fear from the locals whenever prospection of these resources is done. The locals fear because they do not know the owners of those companies who are coming to exploit minerals and other resources in their locality. That fear will not feature anymore because the clarity of resource exploitation and revenue sharing is now very clear. There is also an element of environmental protection. Before this Bill comes out, currently if you go to places where these resources being exploited, the environmental degradation can be seen. It is getting worse and affecting the locals through pollution in one way or another. At one time we were in Mombasa with another committee and we managed to visit Bamburi Cement Factory. We were able to see how the environment has seriously become seriously affected by the mining of those minerals. This Bill is so important. I have seen many things, especially matters to do with displacement of people who were living in areas where natural resources are situated. This Bill has provided an effective framework such that whenever the Government or any prospecting company discovers a resource to be exploited somewhere, there is a way out for those people who are living in those areas to get proper compensation or once they are removed they are compensated effectively. This is very important and I am sure that even those people who the Government had initially awarded them natural land in the forest, once this Bill is enacted into law, it will provide a means of resettling some people who have really suffered for several years unnecessarily. When it comes to the functions of the Commission on Revenue Allocation, the Bill has really touched on very important areas, for example on matters of co-ordination and the preparation of benefit sharing agreements. This will benefit the locals because they will know very clearly that all the revenue will be shared in a particular way. Another one is review and where appropriate determines the royalties payable to the affected entity. This is so important because it looks at the suffering experienced by the people living near the resources. We have seen in some areas that the land where the resources are found used to be ancestral land for some people. For example, you will find a company mining on land that used to be ancestral land and the people who used to live on that land are now living in deplorable conditions. It is ironical that those who claim that the land used to belong to them normally become so poor while the foreigner is benefiting from the land. As Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve has said, this Bill will benefit the locals right from creating an opportunity for capacity building of the locals so that they may know the importance of protecting their environment, the knowledge of benefiting from the"
}