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"id": 812949,
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, each of our counties has a department that deals with disasters or environmental issues. If it is not a department or a County Executive Committee (CEC) Member, then anything that comes close to dealing with disasters should be requested to be part of that Authority. Drought is a disaster and, maybe, the CEC in charge of Agriculture can be requested to be part of that Authority. Therefore, this Senate has to fight for devolution so that every Bill we debate here should be to advance devolution. It is my opinion that some of these Bills claw back on devolution. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the spirit of this Bill is amazing and it is something that will help us. I am sure that if this Authority was in place, moving people out of the Mau Forest would not have waited until now, when people are dying and our rivers are drying. This Authority would have made it very clear that there is a problem; and there is a disaster waiting to happen. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also have an issue when we talk about the Director- General. There are people in this county who are experts. You will find that in some companies, the Chief Executive Officer does not necessarily have a degree that comes from the practice. Therefore, I think we should open this up and allow more Kenyans to apply; thereafter they will be vetted and interviewed. Sometimes, because of either certain regulations or red tape, some very intelligent people who would have been engineers ended up becoming teachers. However, they think, eat and talk like an engineers. We should, therefore, open this up and give people, who did not have an opportunity to pursue a certain career before, the opportunity to help solve disasters. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish that we could increase the number of people in the fire department. We recently experienced fires in some markets, including in Gikomba Market. Currently all over the country, we have students who are afraid of the outside world and are, therefore, resorting to burning schools. That is a disaster! Therefore, let us put people who are experts in the fire departments. The KRCS does a good job, but it will come in as a complimentary benefit or support once this body has been established in all the 47 counties. Let us give our institutions an opportunity to do their work. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we were seated in this House, I saw the breaking news that all the 12 football players and their coach from Thailand had been rescued, and that the entire rescue operation was carried out by the navy. It is important to also include our military in these efforts. When you travel to Egypt, you will realize that they have the largest military in Africa, if not in the world. Most of the work carried out in that country is done by the military. Our military is equipped with a lot of expertise and resources; let us utilize them. There is no point of just putting them there in the barracks. We are very happy and we thank God because we have never had a major fight, apart from the peace missions in Somalia. However, there is no point of us keeping our military personnel there yet we sometimes have these disasters."
}