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{
    "id": 421203,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/421203/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 179,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "have access to clean drinking water is less than 20. My intention is to raise this variable to 80 per cent by 2020. I intend to leave the National Assembly in 2022, when I will be vying for a bigger position in this country, but before I leave the people of Suba as their MP, I would want to see that at least 80 per cent of them have access to clean drinking water, and that there is no one covering more than 500 metres in search of clean drinking water. This can only be a reality if provision of water services are made cheap. As I said, water drilling services are essentially to ASAL areas in Kenya. ASAL areas have been faced with poverty and chronic water shortages. Through the media, we have seen how the people of Turkana suffer. The people of Samburu are in dire need of water. Water shortage is all over the country, including the neighbourhoods of Nairobi. I do not think there is any region in this country whose leadership can claim that they have provided water to all the households as required. This is a Millennium Development Goal. By providing clean drinking water to people, you will also be improving the living conditions of those people. You will even reduce our budget for health services. I have a tabulation which shows that many boreholes are drilled each year, with most being drilled in the Rift Valley, Eastern, Nyanza and the North Eastern regions. Those four regions have seen very many boreholes dug in the past few years. This was possible because water drilling services were exempt from VAT. The VAT Act, 2013 brought these services into the VAT bracket, thereby making them very expensive. As I have said, exempting these services from VAT will help make their cost low and improve water access to households in water scarce areas. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, allow me to now address the issue of supply of electricity to the rural areas. Exempting from tax supplies by the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) will certainly reduce the cost of providing electricity to rural households; hence create savings, which can be used to increase access to electricity in the country. REA concentrates on providing electricity to rural areas. Rural areas are by nature marginalised. Why would we, therefore, want to make provision of electricity to rural areas expensive by passing a law that will subject supplies meant for rural electrification to the VAT? I plead with this House to exempt all supplies by the REA from VAT, so that it can provide electricity connections to rural areas. We know that the Jubilee Administration has pledged to provide Standard One pupils in all public schools with computers. We have heard of a goal of connecting all schools to electricity. I think the deadline that has been given is next year or by 2017. This will not be a reality if provision of electricity in the rural areas is not made cheaper. Therefore, I am pleading with this House to consider this Bill favourably. Before I wind up, I would like to say that, in my Bill, I have picked a number of items. There are others which I would have wanted to appear in the Bill but as we all know, the current law requires that if it is a money-related Bill, it has to go through the Budget and Appropriations Committee for pre-publication scrutiny. The Committee decided to exclude some items. I had in mind books to be used by our young children in lower primary schools. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}