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{
    "id": 770015,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/770015/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
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    "content": "policies that are able to mitigate against these climatic hazards and are able to produce their food. First, we need to produce enough food for our own consumption. We are a net importer of food. The maize situation is a classic example of how this nation is dying from hunger because we have been unable to produce enough food. The Tana River Irrigation Scheme that one expected to produce a great tonnage of food has just come a cropper. We need now to revisit the policies and I am hoping that when this Sessional Policy Paper comes through this House, we should be able then to reassess the methodologies and engineering functions that we put in that place to be able to do effective irrigation. If we take the case of Garissa Irrigation Scheme, it is an area where instead of harnessing water upstream towards downstream irrigation, it was the reverse. It therefore, became not only expensive but also notorious and a place where human beings were being consumed by crocodiles. I do not think we want to encourage this trend in this country where human loss is a result of our own resource; crocodiles, which we can tame once we have proper irrigation schemes. So, then this Policy in a nutshell, is intending to look - and I think we should be able to understand this very well- that Sessional Paper No.4 of 1981 on National Food Policy was not able to address all the issues that came in. It was followed by Sessional Paper No.1 on Economic Management for Renewed Growth, which again was a cropper in the whole exercise. There then came Sessional Paper No.2 of 1994 on National Food Policy and the Economic Strategy Recovery and I remember we debated this extensively. If you notice, between 1992 and 1994 is when the Bretton woods Institutions put a break on the resource flow to this nation in terms of borrowings and therefore, employment opportunities became difficult and diminished gradually. I happened to be the Minister for Technical Training and Applied Technology at that stage. We were able to promote the informal sector and the Jua Kali sector to absorb a greater number of Kenyans to be employed. Otherwise, we would have gone into an unemployment glut in this country which would have burst our economic opportunities. We survived that period of the World Bank or the Bretton Woods institutions embargo on Kenya to borrow from their institutions. So, I am happy that we are now able to go beyond this. What will it entail for this House to pass this Sessional Paper? First of all, we must look at the broad irrigation development strategies that work. Let us not invest money in things that have not been properly engineered, researched and done. I am now seeing mega dams being built in this country. I hope that environmental impact assessments have been done on these dams. If we do not do this, then just one break of the dam downstream can cause havoc in terms of human wastage. Therefore, we need to be critical in assessing to ensure that we have sound hydro-mechanical engineering designs that will contain that volume of water. You know this is not a biblical example where the red sea was parted into two and the children of Israel crossed over to the Promised Land. Our promised land here is in our engineering prowess that will enable us to do proper dams that can contain volumes of water. When I was the Minister for Local Government, it was impossible to supply water The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}