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    "id": 774979,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/774979/?format=api",
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    "content": "in which you have sent as a Senate, but they have not primarily looked at the concerns of our clients, who are the county governments. I, therefore, request the Committee to take it very seriously. This is coming from the Senate Majority Leader, who would otherwise have said that this Bill is clean and it should go forward; I do not believe so. I believe that there are certain things that must be tweaked in the Bill to accommodate the concerns of county governments and also to accommodate irrigation in the modern age. Mr. Speaker, Sir, having heard all the views that came from the Senators and what Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. has said, it is a timely Bill and we need to work expeditiously since irrigation is the future of the country. It is a shame thatwe have oranges that come from Egypt on our shelves; a country where it rarely rains, and when it rains, it is news. I used to ask myself why the pyramids in Egypt stayed for those many years. I just realised it is because it does not rain there and that is why they have all the historical monuments. Yet, because of Lake Victoria and River Nile, they are doing fantastic irrigation and feeding millions of people with a greater population than us and still export produce to us. It is a shame that we have fruits from Israel, but one might argue that they are from Canaan. Kenyans have been yearning to reach Canaan for so many years, maybe, to explore how products from Canaan taste. But when you have situations where you have to get food from countries that rarely receive rain, it is an indictment on us, who have an abundance of rivers and water. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I met the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Keriako Tobiko, who is also a Senior Counsel, over the weekend. I told him that I do not think we will have rivers in this country in another ten years. In fact, a friend of mine we were together with said it is maybe seven years. We have a problem. We have a problem and we, politicians, are also part of the problem. If we say, for instance, let us protect Cherangani Hills or Embobut Forest, where I come from, one has to make painful choices, like I did. We then ask ourselves “what is the solution to the people who are living there?” and “what can we do for them?” The only place that Cherangani Hills has some forest is a small stretch in Marakwet West, from Kapsowar to my place in Embobut. The Embobut Forest is even depleted because if you cross to the Pokot side, there is no forest! There is absolutely no forest! In fact, the complaint there now among the Marakwet is that, why are Pokots allowed to clear the forest and our side we are told to protect the forest? Why do we not just clear the whole thing? They are saying that because of insecurity. They are saying that they attack us and run away; and so on, and so forth. Once in a while I fly over this country. I know that you are a former member of the ‘sky team’---"
}