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{
    "id": 661892,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/661892/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 275,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "The issue of Parliament giving ratification to some of the approvals that have been given by the relevant Ministries is coming too late. I wish it was done before because, as I speak, a major part of our counties, especially areas with potential for oil and peculiar minerals have been taken over by people whose faces have never been seen or known. I hope that this Bill will demand that any approval and prospective licence that has been given from the time we got Independence be brought to Parliament for it to be checked again. This is important because some people were hoarding and assigning themselves some blocks of areas in the country as they worked closely with the people of the Mines and Minerals Department, at that time, which is now the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources. They allocated themselves some of the areas without due consideration and process of talking with the communities where resources are found. Last weekend, I passed through Kitale Town which is the headquarters of Trans- Nzoia County. It is the only other town than Nairobi where we have a resource that is never found in any other city. In Nairobi we have the national park, which my colleague has just talked about. I hope that what Sen. M. Kajwang has said - that some people want to excise part of it for use of fast-tracking products made outside Kenya to some countries - should be taken seriously. The people of Nairobi should stand firm. Madam Temporary Speaker, If 200 acres of land is removed from that park, all of us should migrate there and stop construction from going on. Kitale is peculiarly in trouble. It has 500 acres of forest in town. However, over the weekend, I found many men with power saws cutting trees. I raised the matter with the relevant officers including the Governor, and Sen. Ndiema could attest to that if he was here. The grapevine has it that some “big fish” wanted the trees gone so that they could grab the land considering that we are heading to an election year. They are destroying the natural resources that we inherited when the colonialists left the white highlands of Trans Nzoia. Where are the relevant departments when all these things are happening? They are allowing the environment to be destroyed. The governors in the counties have assumed amorphous powers where they can just wake up and start dishing out land whichever way they want. Sometimes, we end up with strange people being seen roaming around in the villages in some of the areas trying to find minerals. It is important that we have this law in place, which should demand that we get back whatever has been given for it to be subjected to scrutiny in Parliament. I know that some county assemblies have been roped in to pretend that they give permission and approvals. Having sat in the Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget and the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC), I know that some of the MCAs have been pocketed by the governors and their work is to rubberstamp some of these issues. However, such interests do not exist here in Parliament. We are here to safeguard the interests of our nation. Madam Temporary Speaker, I was surprised when I went to the remotest part of my county and was told the type of minerals that are found in the Hills of Sok and Mtelo, yet somebody claims to be in possession of a title deed because there are traces of chromate and copper in that area. In the whole of that constituency, there are no title 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"
}