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{
    "id": 474757,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/474757/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 660,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ogolla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1264,
        "legal_name": "Gideon Ochanda Ogolla",
        "slug": "gideon-ochanda-ogolla"
    },
    "content": "There is a good consideration of rights and I want to believe that the Bill really offers this country an opportunity to look forward to how we are going to properly manage our resources. There are a number of things that we still have to look at in a serious way if this legislation is to come through. A lot of mineral prospecting and exploitation is still going to be in the hands of foreign investors. As much as we have proposed a State corporation, it is important to recognize that a lot of this is going to be in the hands of foreign investors. As such, it is important that we provide certain water tight arrangements. There are one or two things that have not been clearly put in place, for example, the definition of “strategic minerals”. The Bill is proposing in terms of sales of the strategic minerals to the State. As this happens, it is not very clear the kind of sales arrangement that is going to be in place for non-strategic minerals and neither do we have a proper definition of the so-called strategic minerals. The other thing that the Committee has to look into is the situation where minerals are discovered on community lands. In real sense, community lands form about 70 per cent of the entire land mass of this country. The general administration of community land is still in the hands of the two governments. As much as we have the National Land Commission and the national Government, there is a provision that community land is to an extent entrusted to county governments. If that were so then there are difficulties when we talk of registration of community land. There are people who are supposed to be registered as registered owners of community land. This kind of provision needs to be clear or else there is going to be a lot of disputes especially when the county government is a trustee of community land and on the other hand we also register a number of individuals as owners of the community land. When it comes to prospecting agencies or those who have mining rights, I think this is not going to be easy. With regard to capacity, if you allow individual community leaders in the local areas to negotiate with foreign investors – this is part of the problem that we have witnessed over a period of time – because of their capacity, when you do not have a clear provision in terms of the process when they are negotiating, and when the Government leaves these registered community land owners on their own, chances are that some of these things will not go right given what I have mentioned as their capacity. The conditions are well set in terms of the issue of rights in the Bill. If a registered land owner goes ahead and negotiates and signs an agreement and then we have these other conditions of employment and royalties, then there are all manner of problems that are going to be associated with this. So, I want to believe that this part of the Bill must be looked at seriously so that we do not create disorder later on. There is a provision in the Bill that talks about the Government having a mining right and at one moment claiming ten per cent. The Government is allowed ten per cent in terms of equity, but the Bill does not go ahead to indicate how the benefits are processed. If the Government goes in with a zero-equity arrangement what becomes of the benefits? How do you share out the benefits in terms of equity?"
}