Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 616895,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/616895/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 212,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Dawood",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2572,
        "legal_name": "Abdul Rahim Dawood",
        "slug": "abdul-rahim-dawood"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support this Natural Resources (Classes of Transactions Subject to Ratification) Bill. Natural resources are the most important asset that any country can have. Some countries do not have natural resources. In Kenya, we have a lot of natural resources. This Bill says how we are going to provide any agreements which will be made by Parliament for people to get the natural resources. We need to be very careful when we make agreements for natural resources. What normally happens is that we get people to come and extract or mine natural resources and, at the end of the day, the communities do not benefit from the natural resources which are found in their areas. I question Clause 12 which says that the Cabinet Secretary (CS) does not need to make public what the agreements are and even Parliament will be given redacted agreements which, I believe, is not in the best interest of the public. When an agreement is hidden from public view, there is something which is being hidden. That is a way where corruption will thrive. We should reject that part of the clause but, the rest are good. We need the agreements to be brought before Parliament for ratification because as you are aware, we are probably looking at pumping oil in the next few years. It has already been prospected and found that it is there. I believe we should even go further and see how those agreements will benefit the communities, say in Turkana or Meru. We may even have oil in the borders of Meru and Isiolo. How will it benefit the Meru or Turkana people? Those are the kind of agreements which need to be made public. If a prospecting firm comes and prospects for oil and the host community does not get anything out of it, we will need to scrutinise that. Another issue is on water resources. In Kenya, we have a problem. Many people are diverting the waters which would flow naturally downstream. They do irrigation and they stop the natural flow of the water. We need to manage our water resources even during rains. We need an authority on natural resources to tell us how we are going to maintain that water, instead of it flowing into the ocean. We need to look into those things as well. Regarding wildlife, especially in my area, as much as we want to protect wildlife, we need to see that human-wildlife conflict is reduced. I know it is not in this Bill but I would want to put it there. When we give some people the license to prospect in wildlife zones, we want the Government to fence the appropriate forests or wildlife areas so that we do not have wildlife conflicts in human settlements. In my area, we have a problem. Every other day, we have demonstrations. Farms have been raided by the elephants. We do not even have food. We probably will be asking for food aid from the Government. We normally do not ask for food aid but this time, because of what the elephants have done, it is a big havoc. Regarding concession of forests, which is in this Bill as well, we have a case in point in Meru where a forest was degazetted and an estate built, but it took a long time for the people to get title deeds in that estate. Now we have the county government that wants to construct a golf The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}