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{
    "id": 1096461,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1096461/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 307,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kigumo, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Wangari Mwaniki",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13369,
        "legal_name": "Ruth W Mwaniki",
        "slug": "ruth-w-mwaniki"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to support this very important irrigation Bill. This country has been reliant on agriculture. Some of us have been saying here before and even out there, and development partners like the World Bank have consistently sang this song that we keep singing of a double-digit economy. We cannot achieve it until we fix agriculture. How do we fix agriculture? I have just heard the speaker who has just spoken talking about the Mwea Tebere, Perkerra Irrigation Scheme, and Onion Irrigation Scheme. What happened that we cannot develop some more elsewhere, so that we can create jobs and even build our economy? The World Bank reports, and it has continuously stated that we cannot achieve the double-digit economy until we fix agriculture. We have been talking about fixing the infrastructure and a lot has been done in this area. We have a lot of roads plying across our country and we are grateful, but we would want that the roads are not just beautiful structures. We should have products that are getting to markets through our railways and through the roads. For us to fix agriculture, we must stop overreliance on rain-fed agriculture. When we rely on rain, we keep on saying that our maize has failed. We keep on saying that our tea bushes are not producing and we do not have enough food. We have to import maize when we could do enough if we had proper structures and policies to govern and guide the way we do things. We have been doing a trial and error kind of stuff. The people, our technocrats at the ministry and bureaucrats, decide that what this Bill seeks to do is to create a systematic structure for irrigation in our country, so that we do not have a sporadic kind of thing. I am very concerned. I would like to know the feedback that we have got concerning the agencies that my colleague, the Member for Gatanga, talked about. That is where the devil is, namely, putting the wrong people in the wrong jobs. How many times must we read about the President of Singapore and how he fixed the economy through giving the right people the right jobs? We need a water engineer heading such an agency so that we tie the hands of any bureaucrat who may want to fix the wrong person there. Then, the policy that we have debated here becomes a total waste. All of us know that the Kigumo Constituency, which I represent, neighbours Kinangop on the side of Nyandarua, across the Aberdares. All the five rivers that flow into Ndakaini Dam flow through my constituency. My colleague talked about how we lack water. You may not believe that, but it is the fact. The water drains into Ndakaini, through Gatanga and it is piped to Nairobi, and we are left with no water. In such agencies, the needy places should be represented. Also, areas from which the water flows and the dry areas should be represented, so that there is a kind of a balance. Very needy places like Wajir and then those that produce the water are left hard and dry, and with the problem of food security. So, I just want to support and say that we cannot fix our economy if we cannot feed our people. We cannot fix our economy if we cannot fix agriculture. We are talking about creating The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}