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"id": 382877,
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"content": "and birds flying on top. As the good professor has said here, you do not need intelligence to realise some of the mistakes. Why would the Mayor, Governor, Clerk of the County Assembly of the City of Mombasa allow waste to be dumped at the entry of the city? Tourists coming from Europe are greeted by this foul smell. Fish is also fed by that, it dies and, finally, comes to our tables. That is why we have many diseases that we did not know before. Everybody must take action to ensure that the disposal of waste; whether industrial or solid that pollutes the environment, is taken care of carefully. Talking about compensation, in the developed world, those people who pollute the environment have a price to pay. Even today, aircrafts that discharge carbon dioxide emissions are penalised. So, why can we not have serious penalties to get those people polluting either rivers or seas, first of all, to clear the pollution? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am very much interested in getting the specific measures that are going to be taken to protect our rivers and our waters. I would like to see some penalty imposed on industries that are responsible for the pollution of our rivers. This will be in the way of additional tax. This could be in the way of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) making inspections and when they confirm that a certain industry is responsible for pollution, it is fined heavily. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you have seen some of the penalties that were imposed on, for example, Mobil Oil when they polluted the sea in the USA. They paid hundreds of billions of shillings so that they are careful. But when an industry discharges industrial waste into the rivers and then they are fined Kshs10,000, what is that? How can that Kshs10,000 clean the environment? How can that Kshs10,000 be used by the Government to treat the citizens who are going to be sick? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I call for heavy penalties for polluters; I call for responsibility by the health workers to ensure that any person who settles near a river has adequate measures of discharging solid waste from their home. I think this will go a long way in protecting the environment. Again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Motion talks about soil. Soil erosion is also responsible for the pollution that we see. Many years ago, I am sure you used to cross River Tana at Makuyu. The river was wide with a lot of clean water flowing through it. But today, you can hardly find where the river is because soil has come from the mountains, from all the shambas from Murang’a and other areas in Kirinyaga, and has filled up the river. In fact, in a few years to come, Masinga Dam – which was constructed at such a heavy cost to the tax payer – is going to be no more. This is because soil is very slowly filling up the dam and the other dams downstream. So, even as we talk about industrial wastes, we must also talk to agricultural extension workers to ensure that necessary measures are taken to protect soil so that there is no soil erosion. By doing so, we will also protect the environment as well as the investments that we have made in these areas. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}