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{
    "id": 1384764,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1384764/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 730,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "It is as a result of this Bill becoming an Act of Parliament that it will be very clear what benefits will accrue to the national and county governments and the community members. It is very necessary and important that this categorisation is clearly stated. Any time you want to get these natural resources from wherever they are found, at times it leads to the displacement of community members. By doing so, it is important that they know very well what benefits will accrue to them. Where I come from, we have coal and have had a number of challenges in exploiting it. The community has been raising very critical questions relating to where the people to be displaced will be resettled. In a situation where people have buried their loved ones, what will happen to those graves? Others are asking, ‘Can we be told where we will be moved to before we give way for this exploitation?’ Unless that is clear to the community members, then most of them will put hurdles to the exploitation of those resources. The exploitation of these resources will require some infrastructure such as water and roads. It is very important that the county governments know how much will go to them so that at the end of the day, they have some reserves they can use to develop the area where the resources will be exploited. Natural resources like sand are very common in our areas. As you do exploitation of sand, there is a lot of damage done to the environment because the lorries carrying sand are heavy and require very good roads. Over time, you will realise that the infrastructure that has already been developed by the county government gets damaged. It is on that basis that we need to be very clear on what share of the benefits will be going to the county government as well as the national Government because naturally, natural resources are also a national resource. If they benefit the local people, they should also benefit the rest of Kenyans because the resources also belong to all Kenyans. This Bill which is going to propose clearly who gets what requires our support. I want to relate this Bill very closely to the Mining Bill. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I know that time you were still here. If you can remember when we were doing the Bill which is now an Act of Parliament, we also had to be very clear and made sure that public participation was properly done. I hope that the Senate and the Audit Committee championing this has done public participation on this Bill so that at the end of the day we will not have some people going to court saying they were not consulted. This is the kind of Bill that requires serious public participation. The percentages which will go to each group should be clearly stated. I see the proposal to share between the National Government and respective county governments in the ratio of 60 per cent to the national Government and 40 per cent to the county governments which to me looks like almost 50-50. These figures, at the end of the day, must be clearly stated so that there is no time when any of the groups to benefit will feel disadvantaged. As I conclude, it is also important for Kenyans to note that since these natural resources should be helping this country, meet our budgets in terms of budget deficit, we must come up with a framework where we can take advantage of these natural resources to develop this country. What do I have in mind? I have heard many Members in this House who come from areas where gold is mined complain that there is no proper structure on how to get the gold to benefit the locals. We have always been talking about miners. We need a very clear framework so that whatever mineral or other natural resources that we have benefit this country not in a small but a big way and more so in funding our budgets. By doing that, we will be increasing our local revenue and minimising external and local borrowing. So, to some extent, if we get it right through this kind of Bill, we will have no reason but to use our resources other than borrowing. We know the challenges we are facing as a country in terms of funding our budgets through public borrowing. It is leading to serious public debt and pending bills. How I wish we could have many of these Bills so that we fund our budget. With those remarks, I support this Bill. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity."
}