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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, as we look at a Bill on irrigation, we must also ask ourselves, what the role of water masses like Lake Victoria, as far as irrigation is concerned, is. Those of us who come from the shores of Lake Victoria are told that we cannot use the waters of the lake to irrigate our land. Why? This is because when the white man came to Africa, he signed a treaty so that Egypt had the first preference on the use of the waters of the lake. What the people in Egypt do not know is that because of the shenanigans going on in Kenya – the destruction of water catchment towers and the politicisation of Mau Forest – very soon, there will be no Lake Victoria to talk about. This is because Lake Victoria gets its water from the water towers and the Mau Forest is one of the most significant towers. Therefore, even the treaty put in place stopping us from using the waters of the lake should not be the most important thing on the table. The most important thing should be how to safeguard, protect and conserve Lake Victoria. However, even as we conserve Lake Victoria, we must be allowed to use its waters as a matter of first priority; not Egypt using the waters of the lake as a matter of first priority. We must look into some of these colonial agreements, which have been renewed over time and ensure they are working for our people as opposed to them working for a colonial legacy that left us poorer that we ought to have been. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is need to have exhaustive thinking on this particular Bill. If this Bill is going to set up an authority and define its functions, the bulk of the functions, as far as the execution is concerned, must go to county governments unless we are saying that we are approaching irrigation so that we can have big swimming pools for people to swim in, in this country. So long as irrigation underpins food production, that responsibility must be given to counties and we must have a situation where the Senate and governors sit together and come up with a piece of legislation that satisfies everybody. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I wish the Senate had the power to look at the sectoral budgets allocated for the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation as well as the Ministry of Water and Sanitation. This is because billions of shillings are being allocated to a Ministry sitting in Nairobi for functions that should be devolved. We should continue pushing through the Standing Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget, even if they are going to be conditional allocations. This is because we have a problem that started from the initiation of devolution; the issue of costing. How were the functions costed? You would find that, probably, in costing, we assumed that irrigation would be conducted by the national Government, yet the function of food production has been assigned to county governments. I agree that we have too many conditional grants. However, this is an area where we must find a way of channeling money that goes to the Ministry to go to the counties so that county governments can develop irrigation schemes and put money into the problems that they understand at the local level. Finally, Mr. Speaker, Sir, on the issue of existing natural irrigation schemes, this Bill proposes that the Authority that has been created will continue to manage them and any other public irrigation scheme that has been created. This matter must be looked into. This is because similar to the debate on sugar, where there is an argument that county governments must now be involved in the privatization and welfare of sugar mills, we cannot say that national irrigation schemes shall be transferred as they are to these new 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."
}