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{
"id": 1490499,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1490499/?format=api",
"text_counter": 312,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Article 43 and Article 56. That means that we are dealing with a very critical issue, more important than life itself, which for our country, is very limited because there are water scars; and which profit, must not become the driving motive. The driving motive should be access to that water. The Government should realize that access to water has a correlation to the budget for health. If people get clean water, then you eliminate common water-borne diseases like coughing, diarrhoea and even dysentery. There are many diseases that are water-borne as well as other contaminations that occur. If water is made available, the budget of the Government on other issues will lessen, the quality of lives of people will improve and they will become more productive. Madam Temporary Speaker, I believe that the primary duty to ensure there is water lies on the state. I have deliberately not gone to Section 4, which deals with water and sanitation. I am hanging around the Bill of Rights. This is because, you can easily declare water as a devolved function considering water and sanitation is given to the county governments, and therefore, the national Government has nothing to do. When you go to the Equalization Fund, again, water is mentioned as one of the areas where funds from the Equalization Fund should be spent. Therefore, the national Government is a major duty bearer in ensuring that the people of Kenya have access to adequate and safe water, and that duty is one duty that cannot be delivered by the market. The market can never replace the Government on provision of this critical service. Madam Temporary Speaker, I pray that when we go to the making of regulations after we pass this Bill, because it has some good aspects, and I will be supporting it. We should be very critical to ensure that within those regulations, we erect mechanisms that ensure the right to water is not subsumed, denied, or is not abrogated by market forces, which are pursuing profits. That will be a terrible thing. We have already seen some areas in town here where you hear narratives of people with water bowsers who keep on disabling the city water system, so that they can use their bowsers to go and sell water. This is happening, and it is very sad. Madam Temporary Speaker, I plead that as we go forward, we do not just cheer and look at it that water is like - I do not know what I can compare it with because of the debates I have heard here. Even sand nowadays is a limited mineral that needs proper management. The other thing that we need to stress on is water pollution and the destruction of water catchment areas. In the former Western Province, including Busia County, sugarcane has been a major problem in terms of destroying water catchment areas that we call swamps. The swamps that were there in the 1970s are no longer there. The rivers have become small streams and storm waterways, such that, when it rains, that is when they get some water, otherwise, they dry up. I pray that this matter be looked at comprehensively. The companies that are going to invest in the water business must realize that their profit-making is secondary to service delivery. Profit-making should not be the main driver for which investors come in to invest. They must realize that they are coming to do a public duty, and their profits come second. They must have corporate social responsibility structures that ensure that if they have taken over an area, the vulnerable people within that area are taken care of. Otherwise, they must come up with a mechanism of subsidizing them, whereby the state 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."
}