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{
    "id": 1480006,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1480006/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 179,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Aden Duale",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Forestry",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "In a month’s time, we will add another 10,000 youths to the programme. Nairobi will have 20,000 young people doing that job. We will then go to other five cities. By December, 139,000 young people in all our 47 counties and constituencies will be engaged. We have no choice but to accept the fact that climate change is real and, therefore, we must have clear policies for climate mitigation and adaptation, as a country. Hon. Timothy Wanyonyi also sought our indulgence to enumerate the entities that discharge effluent in rivers and make a policy statement outlining the penalties imposed on such entities for negative environmental actions. When I first went to that ministry, I could not believe the information that I saw. The people who pollute rivers in Nairobi, and who produce garbage, are not found in the informal settlements. They are found in the middle class. They comprise of you, me and the Members seated here. The people who live in the informal settlements cook very little and finish it all in one day. The people who have a lot of garbage in their homesteads are the Kenyan middle class. The percentage of pollution by the people in the informal settlements is less than 1 per cent. So, who pollutes the Nairobi River? The NEMA has mapped out over 101 industries, factories, apartments and slaughterhouses that discharge their effluent into rivers in Nairobi. I want to confirm that the Director-General of the NEMA is seated here. He has no choice. He must comply with the laws and regulations passed by this House. He has already given them restoration orders. I will be meeting with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) on Monday. I will tell them that they must stop discharging effluent into Nairobi River. They will have to either close shop or find a way of dealing with that effluent in accordance with the Environmental Management and Coordination Act passed by this House. As I said, out of the 145 facilities, factories, slaughterhouses and apartments mapped out by the NEMA, 101 facilities have been listed as having compliance issues as per the attached list in Annex 1. The NEMA has also issued restoration orders to all the non-compliant facilities to ensure that they set up effluent treatment plants and treat their waste water before discharge to meet the national standards under the Environmental Management and Coordination (Water Quality) Regulations, 2006 passed by this House. Hon. Wanyonyi, finally, want us to make a policy statement allowing for cultivation and re-entry of communities into forested areas. It is worth noting that non-residential cultivation in public forests is governed by the Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016. The Act established the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and vested it with a mandate to develop and sustainably manage, including conservation and rational utilisation, of all forest resources for the country's socio-economic development and other connected purposes. Sections 48, 49 and 50 of the Act provide guidelines for community participation in forest conservation and management. Under these provisions, the KFS issued guidelines for non-residential cultivation and engagement with local communities. You cannot be a resident in a forest. The community forest associations guidelines provide regulations on where you can cultivate crops and graze livestock in consultation with the KFS. However, we will not allow non-residential or residential cultivation of forests. Our communities do a lot of work with the KFS. There is also subsidiary legislation with regard to cultivation of forested areas. Sections 58 (1) and (2) of the Forest Conservation and Management Act grant opportunity to community forest associations to engage in non-residential cultivation. This allows them to cultivate crops while caring for established trees on the same land for three years thus protecting the young trees. In 2020, operational guidelines for implementing the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS), known as the Trees First Guidelines, were put in place. This was to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in the management of our forest plantation. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}