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{
    "id": 1421199,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1421199/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 84,
    "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": "You have heard the President making publicly his intention, including in meeting that we were together in Bomet, that the next financial year we should provide a budget allocation of over Kshs100 billion so that then we can quickly complete the pending bills. The second issue is road maintenance. The enabling legislations governing the resource of road maintenance such as the Road Maintenance Levy Fund Act, Kenya Roads Board Act and the Kenya Roads Act were enacted in 1993 and 2007 and served well their respective roles over the years. However, in the time since these pieces of legislation came into force, the Government has strongly prioritised upgrading to bitumen standards of rural roads that are largely under the purview of Kenya Rural Roads Authority. These roads reach deep into the countryside and provide the equivalent of last-mile connectivity for the road transport system. The challenge is that the resources for maintaining paved rural roads are not adequately provided for in the current allocation of road maintenance funds. It is an understatement to say not adequately provided for. They are not provided for. While the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) receives 32 per cent of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund, little of this is prioritised for purpose of maintaining paved roads. While making this observation, allow me to note that my Ministry continues to appreciate the good work done on unpaved roads with the guidance of the Constituency Roads Committee, a participatory and responsive mechanism that ensures local pain points and bottlenecks receive adequate attention. The effect of the lack of designated funding for the maintenance of paved roads is that recently constructed rural roads, particularly about 5,100 kilometres under KeRRA lack the resources for maintaining them. Consequently, there is a real risk that in the absence of proper maintenance, the newly built roads will progressively deteriorate and some have already deteriorated and ultimately no longer serve their intended purpose. I am sure Members of this House, given the excellent information they have about road conditions in their areas, can provide some of the rural paved roads that need maintenance. There is a Rombo Road in Kajiado, there is a road in Laikipia; there is a road from Kuresoi to Silibwet; there is a road that we were with the Senate Majority Leader in his county from Chepseon to Maili Nne and many other places across the country. All these roads were done under low volume seal. Since the budget was not provided for maintenance, all those roads are deteriorating and no attention is given because the entire allocation to KeRRA is concentrating on the murram roads in the rural areas, and the structure that we have at the moment, all that allocation is going to those type of roads. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the situation with the road maintenance that we have at the moment is further complicated by the fact that the Fuel Levy has remained at Kshs18 per litre since 2016, a time when litre of a petrol cost was Kshs100. In the year 2024, the fuel levy is still at Kshs18 per litre, whereas a litre of petrol costs about Kshs200. The steady decline in the purchasing power of the fuel levy collection means that there is a growing backlog of maintenance activities that ought to"
}