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{
    "id": 1400812,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400812/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 273,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bondo, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gideon Ochanda",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. When we look at what is before us today deeply, we realise that there is a general problem. It is a big one in terms of where the rain started beating us. This is the first question we need to address as a country. It is either our culture or our blood and the way we have been raised. There is a problem. The problem is that we do not value life. What is happening in this country in the name of road accidents would be a crisis in many countries, yet we look at it as the order of the day. It happens and it is now too much. We are losing too many lives. The problem is that we do not value lives and that includes the people who do infrastructure development, drivers, and whoever is a road user in any sense. They all do not value life. There is a general problem in how we do things. We do things in a careless manner not considering whether it will make us lose lives or not. That is what we need to revisit as a country. What is it that we need to do to get back to valuing human life? We are not going anywhere if we do not value life. On the road, you will see a matatu recklessly passing by you and the next question you ask is whether people really value life. We ask that question through and through anytime we are on the road. Matatu drivers behave the same. The police behave the same whether in Kibwezi or Busia. The pikipiki guys behave the same. All of them have a bad behaviour that is common across the country. What is it that we need to do? As a country, we need to look back and see exactly how to start some exercise where we value life. I do not think there is anything we will be doing if we do not value life. If you are a driver who values life, definitely, you will observe road signs. You will be very careful with what you do. You will also not be looking out for the police to tell you that you are speeding. You do not drive at a speed of 160 kilometres an hour simply because the police cannot see you. We need to ask ourselves if it is necessary. For whom are you doing it? For whom are we driving? We must ask ourselves these questions. When on the wheels of a car, we must first know we are driving for ourselves. You will not value life of any other person if you do not value your life; you will not value the life of the third person. This is exactly what we are seeing. We are witnessing this thing day in, day out. We can chronologise accidents. A week or day does not pass without accidents happening involving huge trucks parked along the roadside. A week or hour does not pass without a matatu hitting or killing people. One can track how these accidents happen, like what happened the other week. It happened that in just a week school buses got involved in accidents. The frequency was too much. What was happening? Is it something we want to ask the schools? I am not too sure whom exactly we want to ask. In that week, only buses of learning institutions were getting involved in accidents. Why? Again, it is always the trucks. Why are trucks causing accidents? These things are identifiable. We can isolate them and work on them, including designing and constructing good roads. In my view, we need to start valuing life because if we do not, we will not be safe anywhere in this country."
}