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{
    "id": 1517357,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1517357/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 277,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "approach. He went and approached friends from South Africa who gave him a small aircraft and seed balls. I recall him flying all over the Mau and dropping seed balls. We should not think about this issue of reforestation through the prism of the traditional digging of a hole and planting a tree. Even seed balls have been found to be quite effective. I encourage county governments to adopt that approach. It would be easy to use youth groups, women groups and organized groups and give them those seed balls. Let them scatter them and spread them so that when the rain starts falling like they did today in Nairobi, those seed balls can germinate. However, beyond the seed balls, it is also a bright idea, as Senator Abdul has proposed, that we need to establish tree nurseries in each county. I hope we are not going to have this situation we have started seeing in a few counties. I have seen a program called Climate Works Mtaani and it has good intentions, but if it is not scrutinized or oversighted, then governors are just going to be organizing militias with the next election in mind. If we are going to do legitimate climate works in our county governments, let us ensure that they go out of the clutches and the control of governors because they are going to get their goons and their usual cheering squads into those programs; and those people will be there, not for the love of the environment, but to get a small income. I do recall in Tharaka Nithi county when we looked at in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Governor had set up small units of youth in every ward, and the number was high. Even though they were not involved in climate or tree planting, they were involved in the maintenance of roads. That triggered some concern that some of these things we establish purportedly to benefit the youth can be easily abused. For the tree nurseries in counties, I hope we can come up with a model where we can empower self-help groups and community-based organizations. Let the county governments not throw these people who parade plants and seedlings out of business for the county governments to do a giga nursery the way they are doing giga kitchens for school feeding. I hope this is not going to lead to giga tree nurseries controlled by county governments, consuming public resources that is overpriced and overvalued. Let us hope that this is going to spread out. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I already can see how this will work in my county of Homa Bay. Sen. Beatrice Ogolla knows that along the lake, on the shores of Lake Victoria, there is a very fertile zone, because of the silt that comes upstream and goes into the lake. It is extremely fertile. A lot of young people, for lack of employment, have now resorted to going to the shores of the lake, at those silted areas although some areas are fairly swamp where they are growing vegetables, tomatoes, sukuma wiki and cabbages. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir I can tell you they are doing extremely well. In my village, the boys and girls who are doing farming next to the lake are doing better than those who are operating boda bodas on the tarmac. These are already existing groups and if we can give them an incentive, that if they can set up tree nurseries, there will be an off-tech program by the county government, I believe this can broaden their revenue sources and put more money in the pockets of youth in the counties."
}