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{
"id": 1394050,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1394050/?format=api",
"text_counter": 205,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Murkomen",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Roads and Transport",
"speaker": {
"id": 440,
"legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
"slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
},
"content": "I wish I brought this example here of one contractor who by going to court, we had paid eight-point-something billion over a bill of Kshs9 billion. The balance was about Kshs300 million, but he was awarded by the court, another extra Kshs 3 billion. I then ask myself when a judge is sitting there and awarding an extra Kshs3 billion, where does that judge think the money will come from and how are we going to build the roads? Mr. Speaker, Sir, there must be legislative guidance and it is incumbent upon the Ministry to provide this. Secondly, we should be adhering to the procurement law because that is where the problem is. Parliament provides the budget in the beginning and then the agency is told to procure based on that budget and towards the end of the year, through the supplementary budget, the budget is reduced. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we started this year with a development budget at Kshs63 billion, but we are now ending at Kshs46 billion. There is still a cap of twenty-something billion shillings. For the last eight years, we have been providing Kshs5 billion when the agencies are asking for Kshs100 billion. We provide Kshs100 billion at the beginning of the financial year and then we create a gap. That is the question everyone should ask themselves. How come despite the procurement law, we have this level of pending bills and yet our procurement law says that we should not procure what we do not have? This is the challenge we have. As we continue, the biggest challenge in this Government is to deal with the nearly Kshs700 billion of pending bills in the road sector. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I do not know which formula we will use to sort it out in the next four years. However, I promise, and the promise of the Government is to find ways of reducing it significantly so that people can get at least 3,000 kilometres of the roads completed. On the other issue of maintenance, the same situation applies. I will come back with a policy position on how to increase resources for maintenance and discuss it with you. For example, on the Chwele Road, Lwakhakha Road and the ones in Laikipia and all other roads, all under low volume ‘C’, we are negotiating with the National Assembly, so that the Constituency Roads Committee can vacate the 10 per cent that is for KeRRA to come back to maintain those roads, to start with. Mr. Speaker, Sir, even if that will not be enough, at least, we will salvage the worst roads in the country. If we do not do so, we will build from zero. Some of the contracts were given in 2017 and now those contractors have pending bills and have not completed those roads. The parts they started with are finished, but the other parts are not. That is a real problem. This was my position as a Senator and as the Senate Majority Leader in this House and it remains my position as a Cabinet Secretary. There is no Senator who does not have a mandate over oversight of any function in the national Government in his role of representation of the people of his county. The Senator should not sound like he is apologetic for raising road issues in his county. He is not and that is why I am here. If he did not have the mandate, I would not be here. The point is that the questions raised by Senators or Members of the National Assembly are treated equally when it comes to responding to the status of the roads. In"
}