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{
    "id": 1571070,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1571070/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 242,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tinderet, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Julius Melly",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "First, goods take several weeks to move between Nairobi and our neighbouring countries. The snarl-up leads to loss of man-hours and fuel. That has an effect on the environment and, generally, on economic development. A dual carriageway will ensure that goods between Kenya and Uganda move at record speed and therefore spur economic development between the two countries. It will promote industrialisation. Kenya, as you all know, is the hub of industrial growth in this region. There is a serious problem when lorries take two to three weeks to move between Nairobi and Kampala or Mombasa and Nairobi. This affects development of our country. Building trunk roads between Mombasa, Nairobi, and Busia should have been completed about five years ago reason being even the port gets congested because of this single lane road. There are a number of accidents and a lot of property and lives lost. If you quantify the cost of lack of trunk roads on the economy it is quite huge. This House should come up with a very clear policy paper through this Motion. That is on how to ensure trunk roads are constructed across major towns and cities in this country. Secondly, we also need to know that accidents occur because of traffic snarl-ups, frustrations and very narrow roads. Huge trucks and small vehicles collide as result of fatigued drivers who have been on the road for more than 24 hours. The trip would ideally have taken them six or seven hours. That would have solved the problem. It is important for this House to come up with a very clear resolution to the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Public Works to give us the way forward on how to develop several dual trunk roads that link northern Kenya to Ethiopia through Moyale all the way to Turkana, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, and even Somalia. All these roads will change our country’s economy. Several of my colleagues have talked about trunk roads across the world. In World War II and through the Marshall Plan, the then US Foreign Secretary of State, George Marshall, transformed Europe just by constructing huge trunk roads across the devastated World War II states. Similarly, Kenya has very good farmlands but most of the produce does not reach market on time. Avocados, coffee, sugar, vegetables et cetera, cannot reach markets on time because our roads are very narrow. Therefore, trucks take forever on the roads. 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."
}