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{
    "id": 930516,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/930516/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 233,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kimilili, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Didmus Barasa",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1885,
        "legal_name": "Didmus Wekesa Barasa Mutua",
        "slug": "didmus-wekesa-barasa-mutua"
    },
    "content": "Even as I support the Bill, I would want to see the Government coming up with a permanent solution for the parts of the country that have been experiencing drought since Independence to assist them to grow their food for both livestock and people. It does not sound well that in this era, we have Kenyans and cattle that die of hunger. We must come up with modalities and a formula on how we are going to solve the matter once and for all. Learning from other jurisdictions is good, but it is better to come up with home-grown solutions that are sustainable. At times, we rush to learn from other jurisdictions how they do their agriculture in deserts without understanding the journey they have travelled to reach where they are. By so doing, we end up spending more money on a venture that at the end of the day, we realise it could have been better to spend the same amount of money to buy food for that region. I say this having in mind the Galana Kulalu Irrigation Scheme where the Government spent a colossal sum of money but the harvest it got was nothing to write home about. This Bill seeks to set up a co-ordinating committee. The role of the committee will go beyond just co-ordinating. It will conduct a root cause analysis to find out how to sort out the problems in future. At times I listen to news or read newspapers that we have people in some parts of the country who do not have food but are not far from the Indian Ocean whose waters we can make use of. We sometimes have floods sweeping away people in some parts of the western part of this country. The water can be harvested and taken to parts of the country without rain. Even the water from the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria can be used. If we can transport petroleum products in pipelines from Mombasa, we can do the same for waters from the Indian Ocean, Lake Victoria, the Nzoia River to parts of the country so that they use it to grow food all the time."
}