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{
    "id": 1270481,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1270481/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 111,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Alice Wahome",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Water, Sanitation and Irrigation",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker. May I first take this opportunity to apologise to Hon. Gitonga Mukunji. Last week, I was in Embu County. He got information of my presence in his constituency the morning I was travelling. It was not deliberate. I apologise for that and promise that, going forward, we will ensure that you have timely information. But during that visit to your constituency, we also did one project which has a good amount of water. Let me now address Hon. Mukunji’s Question. The first question is on the steps that we have taken to guarantee that the upstream irrigation schemes do not jeopardise downstream consumers’ access to water and equally provide a detailed report on water abstraction capacities within Manyatta Constituency and the sustainability thereof. The Ministry is implementing the Water Act, 2016 and Water Resources Regulations, 2021. Regulation 47(c) limits the allocation to abstraction, impoundment or diversion of only the flood flow for irrigation purpose. This is informed by the fact that irrigation is the largest user of water. At the same time, that water is required during the dry season when river flows are also low. The Ministry is also enforcing the requirement stipulated under Regulation 47(d) which requires that applicants for irrigation water from rivers develop 90-days storage facilities to harvest water during floods and utilise it during the dry season. I want to assure the Member that if this is actualised, it will be one of those interventions that will help us with water storage. That way, the issue that he has raised on downstream consumers will be taken care of. But from that particular answer, it is obvious that we do not just allow abstraction without due diligence. During abstraction, the permit indicates how much volume of water one is allowed to extract. When you exceed the limit, then the enforcement by Water Resources Authority takes effect. I know there are still challenges in terms of the flows, but we are not just allowing extraction blindly. There are some irrigation projects which do not meet the above criteria. Steps are being taken to ensure that they comply. We have challenges with compliance. You can imagine a scenario where the entire country has indisciplined people and some who act with impunity. In occasional cases, we have those problems. Specifically, the Ministry is encouraging the construction of self-regulating wares which allow irrigation water to be harvested only when the river is flooded. This will allow normal flow of the river to be available for domestic use downstream. The self-regulating methods will also allow domestic water to be abstracted and diverted from the normal flow of the river thus ensuring environmental flow of water required to meet the ecological needs of the riparian flora and fauna and basic human needs for people who rely on the same river downstream. On the issue of water abstraction in Manyatta Constituency, I am aware that the constituency is traversed by Rupingazi, Thambana, Kapingazi, Nyanjara and Kinye rivers. Several tributaries also feed into these rivers. The water allocation for abstraction from the two rivers and the tributaries combined is as indicated on the Table in Page 3. It shows that the total abstraction status of water from those rivers is 795,282.33 cubic metres per day. The standard is that in any abstraction, even from a borehole, the permit will never allow extraction of the whole amount available in the borehole or in the river. We only allow extraction of between 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."
}