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    "id": 491329,
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    "content": "community and the county reap commensurate with what they are giving out in terms of natural resources. Madam Temporary Speaker, in the Draft Bill, Article 4, we not only just mentioned a few of the natural resources, but also gave a provision in Article 2 for that Benefit Sharing Authority to add other natural resources. This is to address the concern that is coming. If we leave it as an exhaustive set of natural resources, we will run into problems later on if we discover new natural resources. Therefore, we have broadened it to cover dynamism. This Committee was trying to put into place a fiscal policy that will enable that sharing to take place at the various levels of the communities and in the specific counties. There is agreement among Senators who spoke in terms of the importance of the natural resources putting into consideration that we are endowed with natural resources in all the 47 counties. Therefore, we are talking from a consensus point of view even as we decide on the actual process of management. We agreed that there is need for distribution of these natural resources. We have given a proposal which will be debated so that it is agreeable. We also have a definite criterion that I will discuss in a few minutes. The importance of benchmarking was also mentioned by Sen. Wetangula when the report was being discussed here. We took it seriously and we have managed to bench-mark across one of the countries that is renowned in terms of mining. They have been able to surmount their problems. As a Committee, we managed to share with Australia when we visited them. One of the outcomes is the need for a way of restoring the specific environment and finding ways and means of ensuring that the communities are brought back to the level where they are in whichever way including if possible, changing those tourist sites so that they can continue to bring income. We also managed to share the Draft Bill with them and have a consultative forum with many of the experts to get an insight of what is expected. As a Committee, we presented a paper on how communities and counties should reap from natural resources. That time was the most appropriate time, to put proper legislation into place considering that now there is exploration for oil and gas in East Africa. This is the time to put into place legislation that should enable us to address the issues of counties and the communities. We are happy that it came up at this particular conference. So, that means that it is an issue of concern that many people are thinking through and grappling with. Madam Temporary Speaker, the issue of policy implementation and, indeed, the issue of popular participation that Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o brought up is also very critical and I think we, as a Committee will also look at that in detail, especially public participation. As far as revenue and the dissemination and distribution of that revenue to counties and communities is concerned, one of the biggest stakeholders who will actually enable us to push it to the next level will be the people themselves. At least from what we saw from the Committee visits that we made in the nine counties, we found that communities are ready, they are proactive, they are actually waiting to participate and say exactly what they need to do. In fact, we talked to the various members of these 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."
}