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{
    "id": 659260,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/659260/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 172,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Abdalla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 382,
        "legal_name": "Amina Ali Abdalla",
        "slug": "amina-abdalla"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Deputy Speaker, I beg to move the following Motion:- THAT, this House considers the Report of the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on the consideration of the Senate Amendments to the Water Bill (National Assembly Bill No. 8 of 2014). This House passed this Bill on 7th July, 2015 and was subsequently forwarded to the Senate, which passed it. They sent a Message to this House on Thursday, 31st March, 2016. My Committee has considered and looked through the amendments. I am happy to report that out of the 20 amendments proposed by the Senate, my Committee agrees with 13 of them, and disagrees with seven of the amendments. I will quickly go through the Senate Amendments that we rejected. We rejected the Senate Amendment to Clause 2, which is adding a definition on wetlands. Our justification is that “wetlands” is a word which is not used in the body of the Bill. We, therefore, considered it unnecessary to define the same. We have also rejected the Senate Amendment to Clause 8, in which they are trying to add the words “domestic use” as a consideration for the inter-basin transfer of water. We believe that it makes the clause ambiguous. We also disagreed with the Senate on their amendment on reducing the review period for the water strategy to three years. Another clause of the same Bill gives five years as the lifespan of a water strategy. We agree with the Senate in Clauses 19, 24 and 25. We also rejected their amendments on Clause 30. They wanted to give the National Water Harvesting Authority the power to make rules and regulations. This is power that lies with the Cabinet Secretary. We agreed with the Senate on Clause 63 because their amendment dealt with an error. We disagreed with the Senate in Clause 64. It brings issues on who can chair a water agency. They proposed that it should be somebody from that county. This brings ambiguity on whether it is the county where the headquarters of that water agency is based or the entire basin. We will urge the Senate to agree with us that the Chair should come from any of the counties in a basin. We want to congratulate the Senate for their amendments on Clauses 72 and 73. They are proposing that we replace the word “accreditation’ with “licensing’, which is more formal and appears more appropriate. We want to thank the Senate for those amendments. 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."
}