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{
"id": 138840,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/138840/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 97,
"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
"slug": "john-mututho"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the whole philosophy of planting trees is like watering a sponge. It makes the earth able to absorb all the water that it can. I want to give an example. If you look at this bottle here, if you allowed a sponge of the same size to stay here overnight, by tomorrow it will still be holding water. However, if you leave some water on the surface of this table, there will be no water tomorrow. Should you be lucky enough to have a sponge this size, it is going to take a week before it dries, under the conditions here. If you have one big enough, as big as this table, then you are going to have one year of water. Water that is exposed is vulnerable to evaporation. God designed evapo-transpiration. This is the process by which plants are able to draw that water systematically and gradually and eventually release it to the environment in quantities that God Himself designed. Of course, man has invented other things like eucalyptus trees. These are destroying aquifers and boreholes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is embarrassing that we are sitting here to discuss the budget of this Ministry because of the allocation given. Even after having acknowledged the fact that we are all falling into pieces because of Mau Forest Complex, we still hear wonderful figures of 0.7 per cent allocation. This is too small for even a primary school teacher to mark you wrong in a budget situation. If you look at the Ministry of Lands for instance, you will realize that the amount of money used by the police department to repair helicopters is more than the total allocation for the Ministry of Lands. This is so, yet, all the conflicts we have are related to land. We are, however, voting a shameful under Kshs1 billion. Look at the allocation to the energy sector. Most of the tree cover is destroyed because our people require wood. Let us not pretend. They need to cook and they need light. They also need to warm themselves. Although we have a big potential in geothermal energy we have been able to explore only 1 per cent. This leaves 99 per cent unused and in the meantime, we are going to depend on hydro-electricity and other forms of energy that will accelerate demand and destruction of our environment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, looking at what the Minister is focusing on, if wishes were horses, he would be able to have a forest cover of 10 per cent. This is still not good enough because we have arid lands. This, again, can be looked at with agriculture so that we look at the agro-forestry component to an extent that we could have arable land which forms about 25 per cent to 30 per cent also covered. Looking at the whole scenario, we need a revolution in the thinking of the Treasury. We need a revolution for them to see clearly that this is a country that depends on agriculture. They need a revolution to see that without forests and agriculture--- When talking of agriculture, I am talking about seven Ministries, namely: the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Livestock Development, the Ministry of Lands, the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, the Ministry of Regional Development Authorities, the Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands and Ministry of Fisheries Development. All these Ministries have been allocated 4.7 per cent of the national Budget. Thirty seven crucial Ministries will scramble for 4.47 per cent of the Budget, and yet they are the same ones that are feeding all of us and employing 80 per cent of us in"
}