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{
    "id": 814934,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/814934/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 79,
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    "content": "are told that the current status is that it has been suspended because validation had not been concluded. How do we go into a one million-acre project with a validation exercise that has not been done? This is a scandal that happened at the excuse of providing food to the poor. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there are other irrigation projects and I see some in my neighbouring county of Kisumu. However, in Homa Bay County, we have the Kimira- Oluch Smallholder Farm Improvement Project, which was conceived in 2006 through funding by the African Development Fund (ADF). It was meant to take six years to completion. However, 12 years down the line in 2018, this project has not been completed and it has not been handed over to the county government. In fact, this project has consumed Kshs4 billion. With the Kshs4 billion, the channels that have been constructed across Homa Bay County – from Karachuonyo to Rangwe, to Homa Bay Constituency – are now being used by livestock owners to water their cattle. They are also being used by young men and women to wash their clothes. People who are putting up construction projects are also using them to draw water for their constructions. This is what is going to happen if we are going to make irrigation a national Government thing. This is because they will come up with ideas that are conceived up in the skies but when it comes to implementation, where there is need for ownership, that will not happen. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Kimira-Oluch Irrigation Project is a beautiful project on paper, but in terms of changing the lives of the people of Homa Bay, it has not had that effect. You have seen some anecdotal evidence or reports coming up that some people are able to harvest vegetables even during the dry season. However, you do not spend Kshs4 billion for some peasant-kind of economy mainstreaming. You want to transform the lives of peasants so that they can move from subsistence farming to commercial farming. What the Kimira-Oluch Irrigation Project has done is to leave the peasants where they are and to make them plant little patches of vegetables which they can pluck, yet they were supposed to be commercial producers of vegetables. That is why decisions on irrigation need to be taken at the ground level. Mr. Speaker, Sir, about a month ago, I visited West Pokot County, where the Governor who is a former Senator, Prof. Lonyangapuo, has decided to use county funds to implement irrigation projects. When we went to corners of West Pokot where they have never planted maize before, we were able to roast and eat maize grown on irrigation schemes in the county. That is the local problem and local solution approach that this Bill must be amended to reflect. There is no way the national Government would have thought about the people of West Pokot and implemented an irrigation project in those corners we visited. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the best approach to irrigation and the way to achieve one million acres in five years has been said by speakers before me. We should allow counties, give resources and enabling legislation and give them targets. We should say that, for example, 20 counties are given a target of putting 50,000 acres under irrigation. Within one year, you would have achieved putting one million acres under irrigation. Even if you stagger that over a period of five years, you will achieve putting one million acres under irrigation faster and more efficiently than the consolidated Galana-Kulalu Irrigation Project. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}