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{
    "id": 1376512,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1376512/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 397,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I think that it will be most inappropriate and it will go against the rights of Article 43 of the Constitution, where the State has an obligation to provide clean water in quantities that are required. If we put in private players to supply a basic commodity like that, the market is driven by profits and that drive is going to distort water, and water is going to be owned by the elite. The poor people will have no access to water. What must happen is that piped water must remain a service provided by the municipalities or the counties. If private actors want to come in, they can come in and brand water and have whatever. However, the pipelines must remain open to everybody. Otherwise, we will end up in a situation whereby the provision of water will be a problem. There are case studies around the world whereby this kind of action that has is being proposed has been taken and we have ended up in situations whereby people have been overcharged. Look at the price of bottled water. At one point it was expensive to buy water than to buy petrol in this country. Therefore, that should be an indicator that the profit motive and the fact that water is such a basic requirement of life and that without water, you basically have no life. We should not allow private actors there. Water is like air and it must be availed at a minimum cost just the way we avail roads at a minimum cost to everybody irrespective of class but to ensure that those who do not have as much as others, still have access to water. Therefore, the proposal to allow private actors to play a prominent role at the foundational level of water provision is something we should be reluctant to embrace. I would urge that that particular part of the Bill be amended. We those few remarks, Madam Temporary Speaker, I rest my case."
}