Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 788162,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/788162/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 198,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kubai Iringo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1574,
        "legal_name": "Cyprian Kubai Iringo",
        "slug": "cyprian-kubai-iringo"
    },
    "content": "we pass this Bill, if the officers do not put their best feet forward and start implementing the same, it will be an effort in futility. We have streams and rivers in our local areas. During the dry spell, because there is no law anywhere and NIB is as good as dead, you find that everybody is siphoning water from the stream. People have bought pumps. Others are using gravity. You find that a river which flows for five or three kilometres does not go for even one kilometre because it dries on the way. Everybody is siphoning water to irrigate their small shambas and kitchen gardens. We have extension agricultural officers and water engineers in our counties. We need these people to wake up. Erosion has taken a toll on this country. Mountains have all gone into the ocean. Roads have been swept away. All this has happened because people are sleeping on their jobs. Agricultural extension officers should be moving from village to village to show people how to, at least, harvest water from their roofs and put it in tanks which they can use for weeks or even months before the rains are back. For instance, in our schools, if we can harvest all the water which comes from the iron sheet roofs and conserve it in tanks, every school would have two to three acres under irrigation and this would feed the students and the villagers. The only problem is that we have never looked into how we can harvest this water. It is a shame. A country like the United Arab Emirates imports soil - they do not have soil - and filters water and plants flowers and fruits. They have got better gardens than ours. Look at Israel or Egypt, they do not have fertile soil. You cannot talk of a desert anywhere in Kenya. We have good soils. We only lack water. If we can get water in areas like Marsabit, Wajir, Mandera, Isiolo, where we have clay and cotton soils, we can produce a lot of food there. But we do not have water. If we collect all the water that comes every rainy season and it is properly conserved, we can have water to last this country until the next rainy season. That is why once we put this law in place, we should have officers to implement it, put it into practice and prove that we have enacted a law which has guided them to the extent that we can see the fruits of the labour of this Parliament and the committee which did this work. This will also increase food security in this country. We cannot continue begging from the people we should be feeding. Again, it is a shame. Therefore, let us say this is the beginning of the end of our problems once we put this law in place. With those remarks, I thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker and I support the Bill."
}