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{
    "id": 1097102,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1097102/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 615,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Molo, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13435,
        "legal_name": "Francis Kuria Kimani",
        "slug": "francis-kuria-kimani"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Irrigation Bill. I will start by quoting Mahatma Gandhi who said: “To forget how to dig the earth and to tame the soil is to forget ourselves.” This piece of legislation that we are discussing here today speaks to the backbone of the economy of the country and the world. It speaks to an issue of human rights; the access to food. In 2021, it is such a shame that, at times, we have seen our people die of hunger even when we have good weather in this country. In some places, you can just throw seeds and they germinate and flourish and we get food and yet, we still have people going hungry. This Bill is very timely because it seeks to create irrigation infrastructure that will create an investment around the irrigation sector and the financing of those projects. This Bill proposes to set up an irrigation board. I would like to put that board on notice. If you do an audit of the number of boards that we have in this country, you will realise that there are so many of them and now, we have the National Irrigation Board. We need to ask ourselves how they operate. When you compare their recurrent expenses, the amount of money they pay on salaries, their mortgage, cars and daily expenses, how does that compare to the amount of money that goes directly to the projects and the mandates that those particular institutions are supposed to do? I was privileged to host one institution in my constituency yesterday called Bid Africa. I was surprised that such a big institution with many projects in the country has only a staff complement of eight employees. They gave us an ICT lab and a chemistry lab. They are doing several other projects in Nakuru and across the country with staff of only eight people. They do not have a board 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."
}