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{
    "id": 719263,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/719263/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 167,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kubai Iringo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1574,
        "legal_name": "Cyprian Kubai Iringo",
        "slug": "cyprian-kubai-iringo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for giving me the opportunity to support this Bill. The introduction of this Bill is long overdue. It should have come to this House as early as yesterday. Issues of water have been pertinent in this country. Since water is becoming scarce as days go by, some people masquerading as hydrologists have been taking advantage of the ignorance and plight of our people. In this country, we have quacks who have qualified themselves as experts in all professions so that they can eke out a living as they exploit ignorant and suffering Kenyans. As one of my colleagues said, water is becoming scarce by the day. In as much as we are trying to preserve or harvest whatever little water there is, the resources put in by the Government, the technology that we have, and the willpower of the people who are in office, are issues we need to re-examine. All the efforts go down the drain. We see water flowing into the Indian Ocean during the rainy season yet during the dry spell livestock die as everybody cries for water. In this regard, I support this Bill because it will bring sanity by putting in place proper systems in this very important sector. Qualified hydrologists, with proper certification, need to be registered and regulated by a board that will monitor their performance. In this country, we have many boards which regulate professionals in various professions, including medicine, teaching, dental care, among other professions. Equally, we require a board for hydrologists because there are practitioners who are not qualified in this field. They haphazardly prepare hydrological reports and get paid but at the end of the day the outcome of their work is nil as no water is found. I have been a victim of similar situation in my constituency. We employed the services of some quacks who pretended to have the capacity to get us the right place to drill water. We drilled up to 210 metres underground and still there was no sign of water. The exercise turned out to be a big loss of public funds. We had to look for another hydrologist to carry out survey and get us the right place to get water. In the long run, we got water at a depth of only 80 metres. If we do not re-evaluate the practice in this area, our people will continue to suffer. We will continue losing money to quacks and no water will be found. The competence of the person doing it should not be questionable. Such exercise should be thorough. If a hydrologist identifies a place for a bore hole, and he says that water can be found at a certain depth, then he or his company should be liable if water is not found. When quacks operating in the field realise that they have done something wrong, they go underground. You will not find them. Let me call them “brief case hydrologists”. If you find them, they will give you flimsy excuses. At the end of the day we lose funds. Hon. Deputy Speaker, the country should put in place measures to cushion it during the dry spells. This country gets a lot of water when it rains in October and December. We see houses, cows, cars and bridges being swept away. People die because of torrential rains in parts of Nyanza and western Kenya, especially in Budalang’i. A lot of run-off water, say, in the north eastern part of this country drains into manyattas and kills animals including cows. At the end of it, we lose all that water and soil to the Indian Ocean and yet when the dry spell comes we start crying about shortage of water. We need to dig big water pans, man-made lakes, and dams which 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."
}