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{
    "id": 480464,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/480464/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 401,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Starting with very simple issues, if you look at Nairobi and all the big towns growing around Nairobi, the construction going on is enormous. Sand is a mineral from Machakos and Makueni and has been a major stimulus for construction in this city. The counties of Machakos and Makueni have little to show for it. The stone extraction from the County of Kajiado, County of Kiambu and the County of Machakos that have been the foundation of the brick and mortar that has built Nairobi and its environs, again, you go to those counties and there is little to show for it. That is why this Motion is so important especially when you look at its findings and recommendations. The proposal to create a sovereign fund cannot be understated. Countries that have taken that route have done very well. You hear of the Kuwait Fund, the United Arab Emirates has probably one of the largest and Norway also. Countries which have taken a wrong path have not done well. We can talk of examples like our sister country, Nigeria, where at one point out of every ten barrels of oil extracted, nine went astray and only one benefitted the country. These are statistics from respected researchers. We hope that now that the country is in the hands of fixers and wheel- dealers, we will be extremely careful. As the fixers shout from rooftops regarding what they have not done, their history will still remain known. If we are not careful, we will find that oil wells in Turkana belong to some of them. If we are not careful, we will find that the minerals we are talking about are being appropriated by individuals. At the end of the day, it is the country that suffers. It does not help any country to have two or three people appearing in Forbes Magazine as the richest Africans when other people are eating rats, dogs and dying of hunger. Our oil, natural gas, huge water aquifer in Turkana, coal in Kitui, iron ore in Taita Taveta, Niobium, rare earth in Kwale, titanium in Kwale and Kilifi, gold in Kakamega and all other minerals that continue to be prospected must, as a matter of urgency and right for the people of Kenya, not be extracted until we have a proper legal framework. This is a proper legal framework that will define what goes to the Sovereign Fund. I can see that there is a proposal regarding that aspect. The framework should define what goes to the national Government, the county government where the resources are found and what benefits the actual people who have been the custodians of these resources. We will shudder the day we find ourselves with the challenges that you find in Nigeria in Ogoniland where the people who have protected the resources since time immemorial have to take up arms and wage an armed struggle just to be recognized, appreciated and to be given a benefit from what they have protected. Equally, the proposed law must take into account the interest of the country vis-à-"
}