Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 815017,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/815017/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 162,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "make must also promote public confidence and demonstrate integrity in the offices that we hold. They must also demonstrate respect for the people that we represent. We will be negating all the responsibilities of leadership which are captured in Chapter Six of our Constitution and more specifically in Article 73, if we as a Senate rejected a Bill six months ago and then the same Bill is brought to us for consideration and we pass it. If not for anything, for that simple reason that our views as the Senate have not been taken into consideration to improve this Bill even by 10 per cent, that is ground enough for us to reject it. Even if that is to be disregarded, this Bill is utterly unconstitutional and against the gains of devolution. It is a classical case of a national Government that wants to operate as if Kenya never enacted a new Constitution in 2010 that created two levels of Government; the national Government and county governments. Under Part 2 of the Fourth Schedule of our Constitution, agriculture is a devolved function of county governments. Issues dealing with water and sanitation are functions of county governments. When people talk about diseases in areas where irrigation schemes are, they are concerned about sanitation. These are responsibilities that the people of Kenya have passed over to county governments and you cannot divorce irrigation from agriculture. When you talk about irrigation, you are basically talking about agriculture which is about improving farming productivity and crop husbandry. The definition of agriculture is clear in the Constitution. It states that agriculture includes crop and animal husbandry. So, there is no way the drafters of this Constitution can be ingenious and disregard a very clear mandate of county governments. Under Article 96 of the Constitution, our main role as Senators is to protect devolution. If we pass a Bill that clearly wants to take away functions of county governments, we will have failed miserably. So, if not for any other second reason, the fact that this Bill wants to eat into functions of our county governments is ground enough for this House to reject this Bill. Thirdly, I have never seen a Bill that is drafted in a simplistic manner. The approach taken by the drafters of this Bill so simplistic. The drafters of this Bill could not think of any innovative ways of doing irrigation other than the traditional large-scale irrigation schemes such as Mwea and what we have in Ahero. If we have to ensure food security in this country and if we have to improve productivity of our smallholder farmers, we must be broad in our approach to what we perceive to be irrigation. The point this Senate needs to put to the drafters of this Bill is that irrigation includes empowering the smallholder farmer, including the poor woman who wants to increase her income. That woman must be empowered to do irrigation in her small farm that can lead to high productivity of whatever farming that she undertakes. Many of the poor farmers I am talking about include women of this country who should be economically empowered. So, a proper Bill should not have this simplistic definition of what irrigation is. They have stated that irrigation means any hydraulic engineering process. That is an offence to the poor farmers in our counties. We all know and it does not require anybody to go to school that we have drip and sprinkler irrigation which do not need what the drafter is calling hydraulic engineering process. People are even going to the 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."
}