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{
"id": 381144,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/381144/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Sijeny",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13127,
"legal_name": "Judith Achieng Sijeny",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to support this Motion which has been brought by Sen. Zipporah Kittony. It is appropriate since this is a new Government which is coming up with its policies and rules. We, as Kenyans, have suffered very much for many years, especially people who live along water bodies. Others have watched helplessly as their brothers, sisters or fellow Kenyans go through harsh conditions because of our failure of taking strong measures which Senator Zipporah proposes. As we were growing up, I remember President Moi even used to do it personally. He tried to help the people, especially around Kamba land, to tap water and protect their land which was going to waste because of excessive soil erosion. He would lead the entire Government, physically, to do it. That was the way to go. We also need to come up with regulations and statutes which ought to be implemented to the letter. We have been watching the lady from Kano, which is not very far away from where I come from, crying every year that she wants to see the President, because they are suffering. When she is told why she cannot relocate or do something, she says that she cannot leave the ancestral land. Such communities should be sensitized. It starts with the way you build the houses. You do not have to build houses the way other people are doing it in other parts of the country. Even in the Mexican movies, we see that they live on the shores of the water, but their houses are built up stream. There is room for water. They stay there, year in, year out. Those are some of the issues which the Government can take up and see what to do, so that when water comes up, people do not lose lives and property. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if all this is done, it shall return Kenya to the rich agricultural State that it used to be when we were growing up. We did not lack food and the poverty level was not as high as it is today. This was because water was not wasted as it is nowadays. The riparian communities were not at loggerheads with the Government. People were living in harmony and everybody knew what they had to do. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this will help us also to stop the over-dependency on donors. If every now and then we are asking for food, because we are starving, yet we are capable of growing all these crops, it becomes such an embarrassment. We just need to change our systems and come up with more irrigation schemes. This will upgrade the agricultural land and improve the livelihoods of people. It has also been said that this has been done in a certain area in Kenya before, you will find that there is so much food and nowhere to keep it. We can export this food because there are other countries also which need it. We can learn from other countries like Egypt whose areas are arid and semi-arid. How are the countries along the River Nile surviving? These are the best practices that we should bring on board and ensure that our country moves on. Other than the oil and minerals that we are discovering, we should not forget agriculture because it is a very important component within our society. With agriculture, we will be safe because we will always have food and a healthy nation. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}