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{
    "id": 815748,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/815748/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 69,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity. First, I take this opportunity to thank Sen. Kwamboka, for making this very important Statement. This is an issue that is alive with us today. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was in the Tenth Parliament. That is the time my colleague has referred to, when the then Prime Minister was asked to solve the issue of the Mau. I also happened to be an Assistant Minister for Environment and Forestry at the time. There are issues that need to be separated. I hope that all of us believe in environmental conservation. I am a soil and water conservationist and I believe that water sources must be protected in this country. I agree that it is not only Mau, but we also have Mt. Kenya Forest, the Aberdares, Mt. Elgon and other areas which have also been affected. There are policies that have come out, which the Ministry, as the custodian of the environment, has. However, we need to look at these issues and ask ourselves, as Kenyans, where we are failing our people. Today, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have received another Petition from Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Uasin Gishu County. In their petition, they lament that 68 were approved, but only 44 of them were paid. I ask myself where we went wrong. This is because we have the data right, we have calculated, we know how many people are in the Mau; we know how many were there legally and illegally. Why do we not address these issues? In the Tenth Parliament, we were very clear about what a cutline was. The former Prime Minister talked about the cutline and that is how we understood that there is something called a cutline. We are now blaming indigenous people who do not understand the vocabulary “cutline.” However, the issue of the cutline came up through a task force that was under the Prime Minister at that time. We need to look at it and ask ourselves why there was a cut line to begin with. Was it because of mistakes that we had done in the past? Was it because of things that were done wrongly or rightfully? Whatever that report has, we may need to revisit it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am calling on the Committee on Lands, Environment and Natural Resources to look at the report that came out at that time. This is because one mistake made was that the people were not sorted out at the time. It is just the way the IDPs were not sorted out, where even the IDPs of Kisumu were not sorted out. How come we are not completing issues? We need to complete issues such that when we have decided that we are going to compensate people, let us compensate them if we think that is the right way to go. 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."
}