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{
    "id": 132276,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/132276/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 365,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We found certain odd things in this Budget like the component on irrigation. We are not here to sanction creation of empires. We are here to make sure that Kenyans get what is rightfully theirs. Whatever the political thinking or rationale, our feeling is that the Ministry of Water and Irrigation should continue providing water to the Ministry of Agriculture as their client but the expertise in irrigation technology, which is a very complicated science, should be left to the Ministry of Agriculture. The Department of Irrigation in the Ministry of Water, politics or no politics, must be put under the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday. We are saying this because we were in Bura and Hola irrigation schemes. Last year, we were in Nyando and others and it is a disaster by any other word. You cannot expect to produce food in one million acres if we are going to have the National Irrigation Board (NIB); a board that is being supervised by people who do not understand this science. This Committee is aggrieved. This Committee takes offence at the way this whole set up has been done and the Head of Civil Service had better listen to this: That it is not about politics. It is about feeding our people. Our people are starving and this can only be done by us looking at what is rational. What is rational to do is to have the experts hired and paid by the Exchequer in the Ministry of Agriculture do their job to produce crops. Over Kshs800 million has been sunk in the two schemes; Bura and Hola. You cannot blame the Ministry of Agriculture. It is not their business. It is the NIB business and I quote from their top manager there and the regional manager for that matter; they do not have the capacity to do it, yet we are pumping billions of shillings there. The Ministry of Agriculture has the capacity. We went to Israel with our Minister for Agriculture, Mr. William Samoei. He has picked a lot of science and technology from that irrigation. That spirit of helping our people should be the guiding force in the running"
}