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{
    "id": 491325,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/491325/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 198,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We managed to visit nine counties. In most of the county visits, we nearly had the full Committee Members’ attending. I would like to thank the 17 Members of this Committee for their efforts, time and energy. Indeed, it is because of their efforts that we have managed to table a comprehensive report to this House. I would like to pay special tribute and thanks to the Vice Chairperson of this Committee for his exemplary leadership and commitment to the work of this Committee. I want to thank him because he was available any time he was called upon and for his leadership skills in steering this Committee to higher heights. I would like to thank the Members of the Committee including the members of staff for the work that they did for us. They made sure that we had the reports on time and enough research initiatives put in place. In this field, we learnt a lot as we continued working. Since we realized the sensitivity of this area of legislation, we made sure that we engaged as much as possible in great research initiative to ensure that we collected enough information. We looked at other legislation in detail and made sure that we looked through all the literature that was possible so that we do not leave anything out. The result of this Committee’s output is a policy paper. That is very important. We made a decision as a Committee, right from the beginning that it would be very difficult to come up with legislation that is not hinged upon policy. Therefore, the policy framework was the beginning point and the overall macroscopic approach in the work that the Committee had. It gives us a lot of pleasure to share with this House that policy paper. It is that policy paper that guided the provisions, articles, insights and articulation of the issues that were very critical. It is these same issues that keep on coming up in various Articles of the Bill. In that report, there is an extensive elaboration of what the Committee did, including discussions, minutes and so on. Last and very important is the Draft Bill in that report. As a Committee, we wanted to have a deliverable that will take us to the next level in the form of the Draft Bill that Members have read. As you stated earlier, we will have a chance to debate the Bill, which I have signed and I believe will soon be coming to the House. That will give us an opportunity to discuss the Bill itself in greater detail. We appreciate everybody for that. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Governors, Members of the County Assemblies and the communities we visited. There was co-operation, enthusiasm, collaboration and interest in sharing information. We got co-operation from county governments, county assemblies and the relevant committees. What has been said about the communities is very true. We had communities in Machakos that waited for us up to about 8.00 p.m. to get a chance to articulate their feelings. The idea that was generated across the board is that communities said that they needed to have a way of relating the natural resources and benefits. Madam Temporary Speaker, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale mentioned that it should have been nice for us to have gone to all the 47 counties. That is what we would have wanted to do as a Committee. Unfortunately, this was an ad hoc Committee. We decided to cover much geographical spread from Kwale to Elgeyo-Marakwet. We also tried to make sure 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."
}