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{
    "id": 137883,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/137883/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 331,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Musyimi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 95,
        "legal_name": "Mutava Musyimi",
        "slug": "mutava-musyimi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, may I, on behalf of the Committee on Lands and Natural Resources, that oversees the Ministry of Water and Irrigation amongst other Ministries, thank the Minister, Mrs. Charity Ngilu, the Permanent Secretary and the Assistant Minister for providing us the information we needed to do our work of scrutinizing the budget of this Ministry. We had two sittings and I now wish to give our observations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the Printed Estimates for Recurrent Expenditure for Vote 20, Sub-head 2210300 – Gender and Education, there appears to be a double allocation of Kshs180, 000,000. The Ministry had a pending bill of Kshs625 million at the close of the financial year 2008/2009 from the National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation as a result of extra works carried out under drought intervention measures. The pending bill is being paid through budgetary provisions and a total of Kshs250 million has been provided in the Financial Year 2009/2010 to clear part of this pending bill. We observed further that the main projects that had been planned for implementation during this financial year and were left out, include, serving construction contracts for on-going five dams amounting to Kshs3.2 billion, up- scaling irrigation development amounting to Kshs4.158 billion, funding of nine neo-dams projects to increase water storage amounting to Kshs4.3 billion and up -scaling of rural water coverage amounting to up to Kshs1.2 billion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we observed as well that most of the water services boards other than the Tanathi Water Board appear to be struggling to make ends meet. There appears to be a case of huge operating costs and low income generation. We further observed that there are liabilities carried forward to the water services boards and the National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation by the parent Ministry. The Ministry appears to be providing funds every year through the Budget to settle these debts. Further, under Heads 944 and 945, these activities appear to be activities that probably ought to fall under the Ministry of State for the Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands. We know that there is a working collaboration between these Ministries especially in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands. However, under those Heads, there appears to be a case of an argument that they come under the other Ministry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also sensed some kind of opaqueness with regard to operations and management of the water services boards. These boards demonstrate a case of leakage especially in their resource collection. We observed that this cannot be ascertained properly unless a comprehensive audit has been done to"
}