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{
    "id": 57695,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/57695/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 279,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Godhana",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Information and Communications",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 23,
        "legal_name": "Dhadho Gaddae Godhana",
        "slug": "dhadho-godhana"
    },
    "content": "I just want to say that we went to Israel with the Minister in 2008 to see how that country was performing in terms of management of water. I was surprised and shocked to see that the Ministry officials we went with had gone to the same universities with the ones from Israel. When we got there, they were hugging, smiling at one another and reminding themselves about those things. I also realized that the models that the Israelis were using came out of the thesis papers written by Kenyans; the same Kenyans we had gone with. I then wondered why we had to go to Israel to see what the Israelis were doing if the experts are from Kenya; the same Ministry officials in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and Ministry of Agriculture, among other Ministries. They were in the same schools with those people! They are the ones who wrote the papers that were adopted by the Israelis. The Israelis have now solved the problem that they used to have. What makes it difficult for us to apply the same in this country, so that we can probably be where Israel is? I would like to encourage the Minister that it is high time we shifted from our old practices and adopted practices that can help us transform from a country that has scarcity of water to a country that has enough water for our use. I want to agree with Eng. Gumbo that this country has a lot of water. Most of the water is from rain. It is un-harvested and goes to waste. The volume of water that Tana River and other major rivers drain into the Indian Ocean is enormous. Just within one rainy season, a lot of water is wasted. I want to encourage the Minister to enter into very dry areas like Tana River and tap the water that drains from the high grounds of Kitui and the larger Ukambani which she knows best. She knows that area very well. We have gone with her to several places using an aircraft. So, she knows what I am talking about. That can help us put up mega dams and transform those areas into rich agricultural areas so that the people in the hinterland do not scramble and congest themselves in small water bodies. They should expand and practice agriculture in those dry areas. I believe that the soils in some of those areas are very rich and fertile. The soils in Tana and North Eastern are very fertile. The soils in Turkana are also fertile. Kenya is rich because we have very rich fertile soils. However, we do not have programmes deliberately tailored to harness those waters and use them for agricultural use. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}