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{
    "id": 910020,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/910020/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 787,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mwingi North, WDM-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Paul Nzengu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13444,
        "legal_name": "Paul Musyimi Nzengu",
        "slug": "paul-musyimi-nzengu-2"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this Budget of 2019/2020. I just want to make a few observations since I was seriously involved in the budget-making. One of the observations I want to make is that during our interrogation of the Budget, we realised that ministries like the Ministry of Environment were duplicating activities in which case, they would have one department doing tree planting and another one doing the same thing. We harmonised that into one department because we thought it was effective in implementation. Related to that is an observation that I will make on an item called ‘National Water Harvesting and Ground Water Exploitation’ which is currently funded under the Ministry of Water and Sanitation as well as the Ministry of Agriculture. In which case, I expected that the Budget and Appropriations Committee would have harmonised this item to be taken to one ministry. In particular, there is a body under the new Water Act, 2016 called the ‘National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority’. I believe this is the right body that is supposed to be undertaking this activity. At our level as departmental committees, we are not able to harmonise because it has issues that are cross-cutting in both the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock and the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. I would want to urge that the Budget and Appropriations Committee looks into that matter. Secondly, I want to thank the Budget and Appropriations Committee for seeing it fit to allocate money to Badasa and Umaa Dams. These dams have been constructed up to a certain level and left incomplete. Some are 50 per cent complete and have been left for years. I want to thank the Committee for finding some money to fund the two projects. When we went around as a Committee investigating dams in Kenya, we were really shocked that our country can lose such amounts of money where projects spend more than half of the cost and then they are left as stalled projects. Related to that is the question of Soin Koru. Soin Koru is a project that has been proposed to be done under the Government of Kenya (GoK) and its approximate value is Kshs 28 billion. Now, the Budget and Appropriations Committee allocated a total of Kshs1 billion to kickstart the project, but I have my fears. My fears are that the GoK has shown non-commitment on implementing dam projects. Right now, the project is supposed to be funded to the tune of 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."
}