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{
    "id": 1051984,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1051984/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 221,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Eng.) Hargura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 827,
        "legal_name": "Godana Hargura",
        "slug": "godana-hargura"
    },
    "content": "Just to pick up from where Sen. Wambua left, I heard this week that the SGR is not even capable of evacuating the cargo from the Port of Mombasa. That is what was in the news recently. So, we are running into problems after we have disenfranchised the road transporters and now we cannot swallow what we have chewed. I think it is will be a problem. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in this kind of situation, the BPS would have been an austerity measure budget where we should be cutting down on our expenditure and living within our means. Unfortunately, it is a case of somebody who is stuck in a hole and cannot come out. The solution he or she is seeing is to dig the hole further. That is what we are doing. Our debt repayment is at about Kshs1 trillion per year. However, when we increase our budget to Kshs3 trillion I am worried because the President said that 30 per cent of the Kenyan budget goes to corruption. So, what are we doing? When we increase the budget, we are just opening up the ceiling for corruption and nothing else. That said, we need to look at what budget we are coming up with and we have to make sure it is one that we can sustain. Our revenue is going down because we have been under collecting. When you under collect, then you should scale down your budget. However, we wait and then go and do supplementary budgets before the end of the year when we know we cannot collect enough and we cannot borrow enough. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in the interest of time, I would like to stress one thing as a Member of the Committee on Roads and Transportation that road maintenance in this country has a history. In 1992, the World Bank Road Maintenance Initiative and the Government of Kenya looked at the condition of roads in the country. There was construction, but there was deterioration and no maintenance policy. It was agreed that we had to have a maintenance policy and had to come up with a fund to support the maintenance aspect. We were not to borrow, but we had to raise the funds ourselves. In 1993, the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund Act was passed. That is how it came into law that per litre of fuel, you had to be charged a particular amount of money which goes directly to road maintenance. In 1999, a framework was created for the management of that Fund. That is why the Kenya Roads Board (KRB) was created. The KRB created authorities and different levels of roads. In the Act, it was stated clearly that because funds follow functions and there are roads being maintained by counties, then a particular amount of that money needed to go to counties. We suggested 15 per cent and that is what the National Treasury has instructed the KRB to give to counties as conditional grant. That is money that is sent by the KRB to the National Treasury for onward transmission to counties. That is very specific. We even tried to put that in the Kenya Roads Bill which could not see the light of day. It failed at mediation between the National Assembly and the Senate because of issues on those percentages. I hope it will be revived so that we can have it in an Act that 15 per cent goes to counties. So, it is clearly conditional. The issue of now trying to make it unconditional is against the law. What are we relying on? What is this policy which over rides an Act of Parliament? Somebody has to amend the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund Act that created the KRB before this can be done. I think it is illegal and whoever is 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."
}