HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 207929,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/207929/?format=api",
"text_counter": 139,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ndambuki",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 191,
"legal_name": "Gideon Musyoka Ndambuki",
"slug": "gideon-ndambuki"
},
"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at it, how come that a district with a population of 600,000 could get Kshs1.5 billion? If you compare it with others with even greater populations, they do not get close to what others are getting. Mr. Speaker, Sir, that is why we are saying that this year the Minister has tried to spread the allocations. I would like to thank him and his team and urge them to continue like this. The Minister has also put a lot of money into these authorities, and we do not know how they select the projects they do. I hope the Minister did not put that money there, so that he can go back and re- allocate it to well connected districts. We would like to see transparency in the allocation of funds in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. It is true that water is becoming scarce. Just last week in this House, we talked about the water levels of Lake Victoria having gone down and many other lakes drying up. I would like the Minister to seriously look for ways and means of protecting the catchment areas of some of these lakes. If you look at Lake Naivasha, it is drying up because of irrigation, and so are many other lakes. We need to come up with a policy on how we are going to protect water. If we know the population of this country is increasing and the availability of water is declining, whether on the surface or underground--- These days you sink boreholes many metres under the ground to get water. It is not like before, and if we do not come up with a policy in another, maybe, ten years, we will have a lot of problems. We will not even be able to get water. The Minister should come up with a policy on roof water harvesting, highlighting how we can harvest water from our roofs to supplement what we have. A lot of water goes to the Indian Ocean. If you look at, especially, the 24 rivers in Ukambani, once it rains, you cannot even sleep because of the roaring noise of the water on its way to the Indian Ocean. I would like the Ministry to seriously think of daming some of these rivers. They should construct more dams so that we can capture the water. The Yatta Canal is being used by so many people, and we need to come up with more canals than we have. It was done during the colonial times, and up to now it has never been extended. These are the things we need to look into. Mr. Speaker, Sir, on the policies regarding the Water Services Trust Fund, this year it has been allocated Kshs80 million. However, to access this money is so difficult! You have to write and keep on writing. I can only recall one instance in Makueni, in my constituency, and the money was given through a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). Why go through an NGO? Why not just go through either the constituency or the District Water Department, so that we can get the money? If it goes through the NGO, that NGO puts many conditions. So, we need to look at how we can access this Trust Fund. The Kshs80 million that he has allocated to the Trust Fund is not enough. All the money that he has given to these authorities - and they are so many - I doubt whether it will ever get to some areas. August 21, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3299 The way this Ministry has allocated the funds, I would like to urge them to go down and, at least, pick two or three projects from each constituency, so that we can say that the water services authorities are doing something. We have really destroyed the catchment areas by farming to the point where the water is coming from. We need to protect these areas. If we continue like this, everybody wants to plant cabbages and potatoes in the river, where the water is coming from. We also need to survey and give numbers to where water is coming from. There are fights when it comes to demarcations. We cannot get the water, because the area has not been demarcated and somebody has grabbed it. Even if you look at the main rivers, you will find that people have really gone and started identifying some areas as their own. Other people have gone and dug wells in the big rivers, so that they can pump water to their crops. So, we need to come up with a policy, so that we can cope well with the demand for water. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is true that the Ministry has tried to do quite a bit on these issues, for example, on sewerage systems. There are so many towns that are mushrooming at the moment. However, they do not have sewerage facilities. People are just using the normal old toilets. I would like to recommend to the Minister to ensure that town authorities make sure that these services are available. Even with planning, if you go to some towns, you realise that you cannot have a sewerage facility, because people have just put up their facilities without plans. The Minister has been negotiating with other countries about Lake Victoria. As we speak, we know that there is somebody who checks the water levels of Lake Victoria, and the people who benefit from it have taken charge of it more than those people who are where the water comes from. If you go to Lake Victoria, you will find people from Ethiopia and Egypt, who police our waters to ensure that the water levels are not interfered with. However, because of global warming, the water levels are going down. There are other people who have started irrigation projects on some of the rivers that were supplying water to Lake Victoria, and, as a result, some of these lakes are drying up. So, we need to find a way of protecting our water, so that we can have more water into our lakes. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we also need to construct more dams, because they are viable to locals where there is no electricity, or where you cannot distribute water gravitationally. So long as a dam has been built well and is well fenced, people can access water, not while inside it but from outside. That would help us a lot. The district water offices have been giving us a bit of a problem. When you have a project to be financed through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) and you want it to be surveyed, the officers demand night out allowance, transport, fuel and other costs. I would like to ask the Minister to make the work a bit easier for hon. Members by telling his people not to be asking for too much as a night out allowance. I am sure that, because they are employed by the Government, they can offer these services for free. When they ask for money, the projects get less funds. If we could agree on a fee, if it cannot be done free, it would really help. I know a case where it cost me over Kshs60,000 to do a survey to construct a dam. I know another case where it cost a community the same amount to carry out a survey to sink a borehole but, unfortunately, the Ministry misled them. They ended up spending the money, but they never got the water. So, I would like to request the Minister to sink another borehole for those people, because it was the mistake of his officers. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank the Government for increasing the amount of money allocated to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. This is the first time this Ministry has received a substantial amount of money, since it was formed. However, this money is not enough. We need to allocate more money to this Ministry."
}