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{
    "id": 1490476,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1490476/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 289,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wamatinga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13582,
        "legal_name": "Wahome Wamatinga",
        "slug": "wahome-wamatinga"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Madam Temporary Speaker. I sat in the Mediation Committee as a member of the Standing Committee. Indeed, the issue of water scarcity and the reticulation has remained quite a major challenge in this country. That being the case, the Committee from the Senate and the National Assembly sat together. In the spirit of one nation and one approach, we thrashed out the issues that we had. Fully aware that matters of water affect county governments, we realized that it is imperative that we agree on a way to move it forward. It is not lost to us that there are counties that are nationally disadvantaged because of their geographical location. We are also fully aware that there are counties that draw water from other counties. Therefore, the existence of Water Works Development Agencies provides an infrastructure within which you can aggregate multiple counties, so that economies of scale in the implementation of water solutions can be achieved. The mediated version of the water Bill allows the Government, both at the national and the county level, to put the effort and resources together to ensure that most of the counties that do not have water or enough portable water do have access. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is known to everybody that we promised in the manifesto of the Kenya Kwanza Government to ensure that people get access to water. However, the limited balance sheet of the country and a lot of money that has been borrowed by the previous regimes, our balance sheet will not support infrastructure development in the water sector. It is in this spirit that none other than the President himself came up with the idea of getting a kind of a paradigm shift in the way we do implementation of the project. Therefore, he came up with the idea of making water a tradable commodity that can be handled within Public Private Partnership (PPP). To ensure that it is doable, it is imperative that we have laws in place that ensure that water harvested in reservoirs and reticulated to households can be accounted for. Madam Temporary Speaker, it worries me that some counties have as high as 70 per cent non-revenue water. That is water that has been collected, dispatched through the master meter, but cannot be accounted for because of the old infrastructure that we have. We know some of the counties would not on their own be able to put the reticulation systems together. Therefore, it is important that the national Government, in collaboration with the county governments, come up with a systematic approach that will ensure that the infrastructure is renewed. Most importantly, moving forward with the technology, we The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}