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"id": 207968,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kipchumba",
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"id": 313,
"legal_name": "Joseph Kipchumba Lagat",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker Sir, this Ministry is ignorant about the value of irrigation. It does not understand! All they want to do is dig boreholes. Digging boreholes alone is not sufficient. Therefore, to the extent that these two departments are totally neglected by this Ministry, I would beg that the Government should - if this Government will be in power next time - move the departments to other Ministries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have complained in this House very many times that some of us who live in water catchment areas - I have raised this issue with the Minister - should have a Board that caters for our interests. We are lumped with people like the Wanjalas of Western Province. When we are given Kshs1 billion by the Board, they take everything. Those people have unique problems. The reason the region floods is that there is no sufficient interest given to water catchment areas where we come from. In fact, I was wondering why we should not create a Ministry of Arid and Semi-Arid Lands. Every time we come to this House, we are told that ASALs have been given more money. What happens to areas that are not classified as ASALs? We know ASALs can easily get funds from donors. Donors love those areas with problems because it is easier to take a photograph of a starving child. It is easier to take photographs of desperate situations, go sell and get money. In our areas, we are being marginalised. This is because we are putting a lot of interest in ASALs. If the Government is interested in them, create another Ministry or department which will totally deal with the ASALs problems! All the money that was given for water, probably the whole of it, went to digging boreholes. If all the money goes to digging boreholes, what happens to us? That is why when people say this Ministry has been given less money, if we give them more, what would they use it for? In my view, this Ministry should be given less money, so that critical Ministries like the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Education get more funding. This Ministry should borrow from what the Ministry of Energy does. They have given every constituency money directly and we can see it! However, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation has totally failed in its responsibility. Therefore, Kshs15 billion that they have been given should be reduced to Kshs10 billion so that the difference can be given to other Ministries! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the money that has been given to the rural areas, if you look at this Ministry, is only Kshs800 million! Most of the money is, indeed, going to the urban centres. Why do we want to marginalize those rural areas? I think there is still an assumption 3316 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 21, 2007 in this Ministry that rural fellows should still go and fetch water from the river! That is totally a primitive culture! We must assist rural areas equally, as we assist urban centres. Therefore, when we give urban areas Kshs4 billion and give rural areas only Kshs800 million, what are we telling Kenyans? Where do the majority of Kenyans live? Therefore, the priorities of this Ministry, in my view, are totally upside down! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know why the department that deals with dams only imagines that dams should only be built in arid and semi-arid areas. I said before that, if you want to sort out the problem of Budalang'i, sort out the problem in the catchment areas, where some of us come from - from the highlands! Let us have dams as well in those areas. We require them! We can use them for irrigation and other services. We can use them to supply water to our people. But if this Government is going to imagine that it is going to wait until Budalang'i waters overflow, so that it can go there, that problem will never be sorted out in perpetuity! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would imagine that this Ministry has experts. Probably, they do not have. They should probably go the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works or to other Ministries, so that they can get engineers. I do not understand why, five years in this Parliament and nearly going to elections, and without funds for my constituency, we are pretending here that we are passing a V3 ote for a very important Ministry called the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. Then they come and tell us: \"Water is life\"! Life for who? Is it life for other Kenyans and not life for us? I want this Ministry to take that issue very seriously. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Sewerage Department is more critical. It is a very critical department and the Government must be seen to put in billions of money. I do not understand why we even have National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA). If NEMA truly exists, it should advise the various local authorities that they must not continue constructing houses in certain areas, until a proper sewerage system is in place! If there is no sewerage system in an urban centre, where millions of Kenyans live, I do not understand why NEMA should exist in the first place. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, many speakers here have talked about their district offices. The district office in my district is very effective! I know they do not get sufficient funds, but we pay some little money for design. We know this Ministry does not appreciate that you have to design a project so that you can get water. They do not appreciate! My people pay from their pockets! We do not mind. But we pay money for Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) projects because, of course, there are no Government projects in my constituency. Therefore, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want the Minister to take this issue very seriously. We no longer want to be lumped together with Western Province! I want to stress that very clearly! We do not want to be going all the way to Kakamega from Eldoret! We do not want to go to a small town in Western Province to get services. We are big enough in our own right! We produce water! We are a catchment area in our own right! There is no merit! In fact, when--- Lake Victoria North Water Services Board is given a lot of money - Kshs1.8 billion! Why can the Ministry not be very specific as to where the money goes? Where is the money going? Which projects are you funding to give us Kshs1.8 billion? I know, probably, I will get nothing! All of it will go somewhere in Western Province. That is why they deliberately put the offices in Western Province! We would want to state categorically that we want to be separated from Western Province! We have never, since time immemorial, been lumped together with Western Province! With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}