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"content": "make use of the huge water resources that have been found in Turkana? How do we harmonize the use of the coal deposits and the new mineral finds in the country, so that, at the end of the day, all these resources that are looking so good for the country, become a translation into national and county growth? Madam Temporary Speaker, in another ten years, there are some counties that will be a lot richer than others. Although we do not expressly say so in the Constitution, or in any law, I do not envisage any difficulty, in another ten years, with one county borrowing money from another county instead of going out there to borrow money from China, India, the United Kingdom and wherever else and bloating our national debt in the process. If the county of Kwale, with all its newfound wealth, has surplus resources, they can lend that money to other counties. That way, we will save on foreign exchange. We will also avoid bloating the national external debt and we will still be developing in the same manner as we would if we borrowed these resources externally. This will ensure that the counties, in their plans and programming, can be interdependent and co-ordinated in a manner that will help this country grow to the extent that we do not want to see huge population movements like the amount of inflows into Nairobi. Why is Nairobi so attractive? Nairobi has remained the hub and centre of everything. That is why we have devolved. The population of Nairobi is now unsustainable. Do we move into Nairobi to lead good lives? No! There are many more villagers living in Nairobi than even in the villages. People come from the villages with a hope, and rightly so, that they are moving to where they will find a better life. But they come to Nairobi, and you find out that the people are cramped up in slums. Why? Because we have not created conducive opportunities for them to remain in the countryside, enjoy clean air, a tranquil environment and have some work to do. If you look at the development plans of this country, for example, the evolution of setting up sugar factories in the western belt in 1960s was to arrest movement of populations to Nairobi. The plan was to have a sugar factory in Muhoroni, Miwani, Sony, Nzoia and in Chemelil so that we could create wealth, jobs and arrest urban migration. But because of the mismanagement of these public investments, even the setting up of Thika as the Birmingham of Kenya did not seem to have worked. If you go to Thika now, there is a slum called Kiandutu, which is so huge and deprived in terms of facilities that you regret why people would move into this place, but you cannot blame them. Everybody lives with some hope that the grass is greener across the fence. However, when you cross the fence, you find that it is not any greener than where you left. People find it difficult to go back to the villages because they have to walk the whole day every day, every week, every month and every year looking for non-existent jobs. We hope that these integrated plans will not just be about small things like building roads, schools and maintaining hospitals, but we want mega plans of industrialization. Madam Temporary Speaker, why would maize produced in Trans Nzoia, for example, be transported to Nairobi, milled into flour, packaged and then taken back there to be sold to people? We should have a mega industrial set up there where they produce, add value and then take the finished product to the market. In doing so, we shall have programmes that will make every county do their best. For example, we have a huge potential of production of cement in Pokot. We have been hearing this for a long time. 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."
}