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{
    "id": 820186,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/820186/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 304,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitutu Chache South, FORD-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Richard Onyonka",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 128,
        "legal_name": "Richard Momoima Onyonka",
        "slug": "richard-onyonka"
    },
    "content": "If you read this report you will realise that it is actually a very good report. It is written very well. Like all the reports that are written in this country of ours called Kenya, I hope it will not be shelved somewhere in the office so that nothing is done about it. Number two, I would like to give my congratulatory message to my former Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, now the chairman of the committee on environment, Hon. Mbiuki. I know many of my colleagues may not know that Mr. Mbiuki was a Minister in the last Government. I am proud of you, Sir. I think you have done a good job. I am sure you are listening to what Members are talking about. Go to the ground, look at the facts and do not spare anybody. Understand what you are dealing with is a national matter. You know that people are going to fight you. You know the stakes are very high. You know that for the last 15 years you and I have been in this |House, the same people who were nyakuaring the forests 15 years ago are the same ones nyakuaring them now. So you have to be extremely careful, but be brave enough so that the report which is going to be written and brought to this House, also under the courtesy of my chair of the Committee on Implementation where I sit, I promise you we will follow it to the letter. We will make sure that we make Kenyans proud. When you look at the report, particularly if you go to page 53, there is a summary of key findings. Number one, coordination and collaboration between KFS and other conservation agencies and key stakeholders at the forest station levels and county levels does not exist. The truth is, when you look at what is going on, even NEMA’s performance is below par. And we all know. We have seen NEMA giving clean bills of health, not even to the water towers. If you go to our counties and especially our constituencies, you will find that NEMA has approved somebody to build a house in water catchment areas. You wonder why NEMA would do that. It is because of the disease we have in this country which is called corruption. On page 54, one of the recommendations says conservation and sound management of forests cannot be achieved by one agency alone. We must have a multiagency arrangement, which is going to be supported by a framework that is going to be brought to this House. The chair of the environment committee, you understand that we must have Bills brought to this House, which are going to then protect whatever framework that we are going to bring within the law. Another issue that is very sad, you realise what the county governments are doing right now totally disregards what the national Government does. As my colleague said, you will find that the county governments are actually issuing title deeds to certain individuals and entities and yet the national Government assumes that those title deeds are null and void. There must be a problem with national Government coordination. This House is the one which can streamline the activities of these institutions and bring laws which are going to make sure that we run our environment and make it safe for us. If you travel out of this country to Europe or the United States of America, you will find that most of these countries have a deliberate attempt, even when they have achieved what United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recommends which is supposed to be 10 per cent forest cover, to move to 22-26 per cent. This is what we need to do in our country. We do not have to go and plant trees in the forest areas. We can plant trees in our schools, towns and health facilities. When somebody is unwell in a hospital and the environment is covered with trees and it is green and the breeze is fresh, it has scientifically been proven that that person will heal very fast, because the air is fresher, there is better oxygen circulation and usually the temperatures are cooler. I would like to make a request that even the recommendations which the committee on environment is going to bring to this House include interventions which are going The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}