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{
    "id": 1347494,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1347494/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 366,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "healthcare, especially when you get into a situation where you have terminal diseases, it becomes the hardest thing you can ever experience. That is what we are facing with water in this country. To the extent that if water was fully commercialized and commercial viability becomes the only angle with which you want to get water in this country, then it becomes a commodity that will be out of reach of many Kenyans. That is why the framers of the Constitution under Schedule Four saw it best to not only to devolve this function, but also try and give counties full control of water. For instance, if you read the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, Section 182 provides room for counties to establish corporations which can become the vehicles with which you can allow for commercial viability of this kind of commodity, while also allowing for service provision with this kind of commodity. If you read Section 184 of the PFM Act, the structure with which these provisions are given are, therefore, structures that are supposed to enable not only focusing on being able to make these corporations viable, but also being able to make counties accountable. Importantly, is to take ownership of these water services and these corporations that are giving us what I would call essential services. Madam Temporary Speaker, if you look further into Section 77 of the Water Act, 2016 that we are seeking to amend today and read it together with Part Two of the Water Services Regulations that were established in 2021, it further emphasizes the role of the county executive and its members to be able to take full responsibility on establishing what the Act calls water service providers. I am giving this backdrop because we have experienced a number of times when water is left in the hands of private individuals, it takes the simple course of the market economy where you are leaving water to supply and demand theories. However, the truth is the availability and access of water in this country is not evenly distributed. Today, if you go to Turkana County, you will find that there are a few water bodies that people can access. There is no predictable rainfall in that region. If you go to Mandera County, you find that at times like now when there is El Niño, people face extreme weather conditions in certain times of the year and extreme weather conditions in the other. At some moment, it gets extremely hot that some people cannot access water and at some other moment, it is extremely cold and wet in such a way that even if you are able to access surface runoff of water, it is not safe for consumption. That is why the case for water is something that we cannot lose sight of giving counties a framework and a legal basis for controlling it absolutely to the extent that everybody can at least have some sense of equity in terms of access and availability. Madam Temporary Speaker, this Bill is against that spirit of absolute ownership of water provision and water services in our counties. I will walk you through some of the amendments that this Bill seeks to bring and why I believe that they are hugely problematic. Not only problematic because they are going to prohibit the idea of access and availability of water to different counties, but also prohibitive in the sense that they are going to claw back completely on why we have the function called devolved units in this country."
}