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"id": 1397836,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1397836/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "The Cabinet Secretary for Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports",
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"content": "facilities scattered across the country, from Ruring’u to Kamariny in Elgeyo Marakwet County, to Wote in Makueni and many other places. These are projects which have gobbled approximately Ksh10 billion in actual expenditure, but which have not been completed to be put to public use. Hon. Speaker, the situation of Ruring’u and the other stadia that I mentioned in different parts of the country is among the huge challenges that we inherited when we came into office about 16 months ago. We realised right away that this country had a serious problem. There were very many projects all over the place and colossal sums of money had been pumped into them, but on assessment, those projects had taken too long to be completed. That is the case because of several factors, one of them being failure to match the project with availability of resources, just like the previous question I answered, where a commitment was made to do a project without confirming availability of resources. Sometimes it was a case of incapacity of the contractor, where one who was given work lacked capacity to do it. It also extends to our own institutional limitations, both as a ministry and our agencies, like Sports Kenya and Kenya Academy of Sports. I want to admit here that we have limitations, and that is why we have made effort to be supported in order to recruit extra staff to enhance our capacity. One of the things I will keep on reminding the House is support for the Ministry and our institutions to be able to build our capacities in terms of hiring more technical officers. Hon. Speaker, with regard to this issue, in order to address this challenge, we made a policy decision to freeze construction of these projects, do a thorough assessment and plan for them. I am very proud to report to this House that for the first time in the 60-year history of this country, we were able to develop a masterplan on infrastructure for sports and the creatives. I have actually attached a copy of the masterplan as Annex ‘A’ to this response. The masterplan answers questions such as what we need to do, where we need to do it, how we need to do it, when we need to do it, and at what cost. It lays down a very clear plan. It also provides some metrics to determine the choice of a site. For instance, the other day, when deciding where to build the Talanta Stadium, which is going to be the centre for hosting AFCON in 2027, we considered different venues — Mombasa, Nakuru and other places. Because of the criteria we have set out in the master plan, we were able to pick a site that ticks the necessary boxes on cost, accessibility and viability of the project. Therefore, Ruring’u Stadium and many of these stadia are victims of poor planning and poor execution or implementation. I can confirm to the Hon. Member that the policy to stop construction of new stadia was adopted to merely allow the Ministry to conduct a thorough assessment to determine the state of infrastructure across the country. We have since concluded that exercise and we now have the masterplan. That also allowed us time to invite the Auditor-General to look at some of these troubled spaces to help us determine what the problem was. I am pleased again to notify this House that I personally delivered hat request to the Auditor-General who has since completed that process and has delivered a report to this House for consideration. We are also looking at it from our end. It is now going on in various spaces where we had stopped because we have finished that assessment and audit, and we have determined how we should move forward. So, work is already going on at some of those places. Hon. Speaker, the second limb of the Question is with regard to the status of Ruring’u Stadium. In 2017, the project was initiated at a contract sum of Ksh365,000,735.30. That is the contract sum that was awarded in 2017, seven years ago. It was supposed to have a 4,000-seater main pavilion, a FIFA standard football field, a borehole and associated water storage facilities, electrical and mechanical works and eight-lane track done to international standard because we envisaged that it should be a stadium that can host some of the events that Kenya hosts. It was supposed to have a VIP lift. That scope was priced at Ksh365,000,000. To date, the records The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
}