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{
    "id": 661909,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/661909/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 292,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Hargura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 827,
        "legal_name": "Godana Hargura",
        "slug": "godana-hargura"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker. I would like to support this Bill, because, first, it is a constitutional requirement that in our own wisdom as Kenyans, we have put in our Constitution Article 71. This Article states that Parliament has to enact a law which gives the classes of transactions which should be subject to ratification concerning exploitation of natural resources. So, this is a requirement which we have to come up with. The most important thing here is ratification because before, things have been done without the knowledge of the public. Even those who were affected by that exploitation did not know what was going on around them. Now that the the Constitution requires that we declare what transactions require ratification, then we are opening up an area which has initially been involved with a lot of secrecy. Now the public will know what has been done where to the extent that even a register is kept and you can access and see who has been given what in terms of the right to exploit resources, and this is good. In Clause 9, the Bill clearly states what ratification is all about, so that we make sure that the relevant Government policies have been complied with by the parties in these transactions who are seeking the rights to exploit the resources. The most important one is Part B which says, “Where there is adequate stakeholder consultation.” That is where we normally have problems. The stakeholders are members of the public who live on the land where those resources are found and who just see people who are unknown to them and even those who are known to them exploiting resources without them being consulted and this affects them in one way or another. So, this will give Parliament time to establish whether there was any stakeholder consultation and whether the public had agreed with it or not. The most important thing is that somebody who is interested in exploiting any resources, referred to here as “the beneficiary” will not go ahead to do the exploitation until this agreement has been ratified, and that will allow the public to come in if they had not been consulted before. The classes of transactions are also clearly stated in the Schedule. However, there are some new resources which have not been captured in this Schedule. For example, Article 260 of the Constitution identifies solar power as a natural resource but it is not in this Schedule. We also have wind energy and it is also not in this Schedule. From the direction we are moving now, in terms of renewable energy, these are resources which will be exploited by many investors. If we do not include them in this kind of classification, we will have a scenario of communities not been consulted as we have witnessed in the past. An investor will just come and start investing. In most cases, wind power involves a lot of land use. So, it requires acquisition of land first and then exploitation of the resource. This also needs to be included here so that 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"
}