Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 774150,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/774150/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 281,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Yes and I will exhaust the whole of it. Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this Bill. The premise upon which this Bill is grounded does not fully appreciate devolution. Irrigation is agriculture which is wholly devolved. If we want to have meaningful irrigation programmes in the country, then the skewed manner in which this Bill is crafted makes it very difficult to believe that we are supporting and growing devolution. At an appropriate time, I will walk through the whole Bill. However, just look at the formulation of the Board and you see how it does not appreciate what devolution is. The membership of the Board is as follows: 1. A Chairperson who shall be appointed by the President; 2. The Principal Secretary – State Department of Irrigation; 3. The Principal Secretary responsible for Finance; and, 4. Seven other members who shall be appointed by the Cabinet Secretary (CS) and approved by the President; Then further down, they say the members of the Board shall include two representatives of the county governments. Now, these are 10 members of the Board. Irrigation is devolved and out of 10, you are loading it with national Government and allowing the CoG to nominate only two to represent the 47 county governments. In a critical sector where any irrigation in this country shall not be done in the clouds, it will be on the ground on the basis of water and land domiciled in some county. So, the leadership of this Board must be of necessity nominated by the counties that they are the centre piece of the action. For example, if you want to irrigate somewhere in Ewaso Nyiro in the North and the PS, Treasury comes from Kiambu here; PS agriculture is from somewhere else – they have to come from somewhere – and all these people that are loaded here do not even know where Ewaso Nyiro is. Their maters will never be articulated --- Thank you."
}