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{
    "id": 1186967,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1186967/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 314,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mandago",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13577,
        "legal_name": "Kiplagat Jackson Mandago",
        "slug": "kiplagat-jackson-mandago"
    },
    "content": "It is unfortunate that in most parts of this county where rivers flow to, there is hardly any benefit except for a few commercial entities. If you look at the irrigation that is happening using the water from River Tana, it is only for the well to do. It will be recommended that not only should stakeholders or the communities that live along the rivers be consulted; it is also necessary that also the communities that live in the source of the rivers be considered so that they can benefit. We have seen situation in counties like Murangá where water has been drained to come all the way to Nairobi and the people of Murangá County, in some sections where the water is flowing from are not able to get water for domestic use leave along water for irrigation. It is therefore important that we balance the interests of the communities that live downstream and those that live in the sources of the rivers because those communities are always called upon to do conservation. It is time, as a House, that we also relook into the issue of natural resource whose counties can benefit and other counties can also benefit from those resources. I rise to support this Motion by Senator for Tana River County and to note that Tana River is among the counties that in the present-day Kenya, 60 years after independence, it is among the areas we are calling marginalized. It is time we end the process of marginalization by ensuring that resources like the water in the dams that flow through River Tana are given to these communities so that they can improve their economic activities and even commercialize agriculture. I remember there was a project that the Government intendent to do in the year 2003 in Galana Kulalu. That project was a sugar cane growing project. The project was going to have canes that were going to be ripe in nine months for the first time in this country. That project had the potential of reducing the cost of sugar by more than 80 per cent. That project had the potential of turning around the economic activities of Tana River County from a dry land to a serious commercial agriculture sector. It is time such projects are revisited for the benefit of the community. It is time we amend the law so that institutions like KenGen and others stop the business of tokenism in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The CSR has been abused by most of the parastatals in this country by coming around and putting a small signpost, constructing a small toilet there and then they say that this is CSR for Tana River County. As Tana River is suffering from the floods and the effects of the damps upstream, I hope the whole of Tana River County has been supplied with electricity as the least contribution for the effects that they are suffering from dumping. I beg to support this Motion."
}