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{
    "id": 382941,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/382941/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 110,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Njoroge",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13158,
        "legal_name": "Ben Njoroge",
        "slug": "ben-njoroge"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise to support this Motion as amended. From the onset, let me congratulate, just like my colleagues have done, Sen. Muthama for moving this very important and timely Motion. We have all by unanimous consensus agreed that indeed, this is not only a national issue but it is also a major national concern. When the Mover of this Motion was moving it, he referred to some young men who normally dive to attract tourists in the Fourteen Falls Dam. I also want to share in that concern and, indeed, declare that those young boys come from my county in the area of Thika. As the Mover said, little do they know that in the course of their gimmicks and in their attraction, the black water they dive into, is indeed, a dive of death. When they dive into the dam and come out of that water, they are carrying poisonous chemicals in their bodies, some that they have swallowed in the course of diving. The greatest victims of this problem are the children and the poor people of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the name Wamatangi is derived from a project which I run in supplying water preservation tanks to the community and I have firsthand experience in what happens to the poor communities. I would say that cities like Nairobi and other urban towns, I can declare to this House that almost 70 per cent of the families rely on water directly from the river. They have no purification system or a method of determining what is polluted and what is not polluted. That is why, as some contributors have said here, you will be surprised to see that in the rural towns and counties, diseases which were hitherto never there like cancer are there. This is as a result of this problem. In the course of industrial pollution, this problem has magnified itself to even take a bigger toll on our citizens, including causing huge national losses of lives. I have in mind, a few years ago, this country suffered a major disaster. This was directly derived from the problem we are addressing today. We all remember when there was a big disaster at the Kenya Pipeline in the slums of Mukuru kwa Njenga. We all know that this problem started because the company was said to have diverted its waste oil into the sewage system which eventually was pouring into the rivers. This magnified itself differently into such a huge national catastrophe which cost livelihoods and a major economic destruction to the lives of those people and to this country at large. This is a big problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should call for definite action that is going to ensure that this Motion does not only become another report in the shelves or another source of what would be called a talking shop. In this Motion, the Mover has specifically mentioned the Dandora Dumpsite as one of the major sources of pollution. It would be self defeating if we do not then follow this by asking the Government to immediately take action in ensuring that the move to relocate this dumpsite in Dandora has taken place right away and not tomorrow so that this pollution can stop forthwith and indeed, all the other problems that are visited on the communities around Dandora can also be addressed once and for all. The Motion also calls for penalties to be imposed on the violators of this proposed law. I would also want to call and to support that indeed, the penalties that we are going to impose upon those who choose to violate this law should be very stiff. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}