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"content": "when the floods affect people’s housing and the water that they should be drinking because they are supposed to take fresh water. This leads to water-borne diseases. We have seen schools being closed down as a result of these floods. Most recently, two days ago, Ahero Girls in Nyanza was closed. The disaster has affected various counties. This has not only affected one county. The problem ranges from Tana River, Mombasa, Kisumu, Kajiado, Kiambu, Murang’a, Nandi, Turkana, Baringo and West Pokot counties, among other areas. All these areas have been affected as a result of this specific disaster. What has the response been like because it is not only in Kenya where we have such disasters as flooding? For example, we have countries like India, Bangladesh and the Netherlands which have had good and sustainable responses that, over time, have reduced the amount of pain and loss that are caused by such disasters. In the Kenyan situation, two organizations have been at the forefront of addressing the floods. These are basically, the Kenya Red Cross and the Ministry of State for Special Programmes. We have other organizations that would be very critical in playing such a role. These are, for example, organizations like the National Environment Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Youth Service (NYS) and other Non- Governmental Organisations that would come in. The problem is that for a long time, there has been no sense of coordinated effort. In fact, there is no sense of an early preparation system in place that prepares people for such disasters so that when they occur, people already have a way to respond to them. So, for a very long time, the Government has not engaged, mobilized and found a way of bringing all the players into the fore quickly enough. All the time, the issue is about responding rather than reacting to a particular situation. We know, for example, that in issues of disaster management, it is very important, first, to be prepared. Secondly, we need to have mechanisms for mitigation that can be put in place. This has various implications. This has implications, for example, in terms of funds, expertise and preparing people so that they have the capacity and the right amount of human resources to handle those kinds of disasters. That is always very critical but has not been put into consideration. Therefore, what we have is wastage of resources in terms of responding because everybody has a different way of coming in to respond in small ways that are not well measured. For example, people are not able to continue with their day to day lives because they have been cut off by floods and cannot get to their places of work. It could be about quickly putting up makeshift houses or coming up with an aid package which can be given to residents, so that they can sustain themselves. Red Cross does this very often. But all these activities have never been actualized or done in a very organized manner. Each player at any one time just comes in with a specific idea or agenda. The idea of harmonization, especially bringing in all these key players, has really let us down. We know that there are enormous costs involved, especially at this time of floods. We represent the people in the counties and, therefore, their interests are very key and important. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the last Motion by Sen. Musila, we have been talking about roads. Some of the roads which were cut off during the floods, include the one from Kwale to Kinango and Kwale to Lunga Lunga. People could not move to Tanzania, 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."
}