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"id": 205491,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Arungah",
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"legal_name": "Julius Odenyo Arungah",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Vote. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, may I join my colleagues in commending the Minister September 5, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3727 for the work that he has done. If you look at the parastatals that are under his Ministry, the performance, generally, has been on an upward trend. But, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a lot has been said about the issue of matatus, the madness in that sector and the role that hon. Michuki played. It has been implied that the current Minister is not doing much about order or disorder in the matatu sector. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am just wondering aloud because, as a Minister, hon. Mwakwere or hon. Michuki are involved only at the policy level. But, on the ground, it is the technocrats who are supposed to implement whatever policies or measures on the ground. I am not aware that when hon. Michuki left the Ministry, he took away some officials from that Ministry. Perhaps, when the Minister is responding, he should tell us whether the order that was, for a short time, introduced into the matatu sector, disappeared when the Minister was moved away from that Ministry! Why, then, is it that the officials who were left there have not been able to implement the policy that hon. Michuki put in place? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I said that the Minister and his staff have tried. I would like to take this opportunity to commend him and the entire staff for the work that they have put in place. There are three areas, though, that I would like to comment on. I would like to start with Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). For many years, KPA has made losses. But we have been told that, in recent years, it has been making profits. But there are areas which I think the Minister could do something to improve the performance of that corporation because, in terms of facilitation of trade, it is extremely important. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a practice which is going on at the Port, where the loading capacity and the equipment at the Port is not adequate. So, as a result, KPA is deliberately allowing in a number of trucks which they know, they will not be able to load. For example, they allow into the Port about 100 trucks. At the end of the day, they are able to load only 50 trucks because of malfunctioning of the cranes there. But the sad part is that when, for example, the transporters or the owners of the goods have loaded their goods, the vehicles are detained at the Port for no reason of their own. There is a surcharge that is levied on them because, for some reason, the cargo was not able to leave the Port. The Port has three or four gates but, for some strange reason, KPA has decided to use only one gate to cause a jam, so that those trucks cannot leave the Port and, maybe, they can levy that money. I do not know. I do not understand why they cannot make use of the other two or three gates. The transporters and the owners of the goods are being inconvenienced. The resultant effect is that we are not facilitating trade as we claim we are doing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the unfortunate bit is that there is very high level corruption that is taking place in this Ministry. For some strange reason, the weighbridges have been put under this Ministry. I want to hold this Ministry, at that level, solely responsible for the destruction of our roads! I want to hold this Ministry solely responsible for the destruction of our roads. We know how much money we are spending to build those roads. There is a container at the port in Mombasa, nicknamed \"nundu\" which is 25 tonnes and is 20 feet. So, there are brokers who know there is \"nundu\" coming and they go at the weighbridges and discuss it because they know so-and-so is coming and has so much tonnes over-weight. By the time the container leaves Mombasa Port to Malaba border, there is a fee on each container of Kshs40,000 which somebody puts in his or her pockets. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you assume that there are 100 containers leaving the Port of Mombasa and 30 per cent are overloaded, it means that somebody is pocketing on average, Kshs2 million a day. I do not want to believe that the Minister or his staff are not aware of what is going on. It is possible to address this issue because I expect the Minister to be in the fore-front in 3728 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES September 5, 2007 pushing for legislation. If we cannot do it as a country, then we can do it as the East African Community (EAC) because the Minister may be afraid that we will lose the business of Mombasa Port to Dar-es-Salaam. But as EAC, there is no reason why they cannot come up with a piece of legislation to require that no cargo that exceeds a certain weight per container leaves the Port of Mombasa. That is the only way we can minimise damage on our roads. In addition, I have not found the reason why they have put many weighbridges on our roads when the easiest thing would be to put one weighbridge at the Port, so that any container that is above the required weight is detained and does not leave the Port until they off-load the goods. Instead, these weighbridges are conduits. These weighbridges have been put in place for the sole reason of collecting revenue. This is a fact. When the Minister will be responding, I would like him to comment on this issue because he is aware. If he does not know, he should know now because that is what is happening. They should scrap this nonsense called \"weighbridges\" because it is just a place for robbing money from wananchi, transporters or the owners of the goods. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my bitterness is due to the fact that Mombasa Road is excellent but with what is going on, in another two years, we shall have no road and this Ministry will solely be responsible for that mess. I hope he can do that. He should come up with legislation, which states that any cargo coming into the country must not exceed a certain weight, that way, we shall save our roads. There is the issue of licensing of aircraft. This country has played a very important role in the struggle in our neighbouring countries like Sudan. But you will find that there are people who have been sitting pretty elsewhere in other countries, who are bringing in aircraft and forming companies here and are given licences to do lucrative business between ourselves and our neighbouring countries which we have struggled so much to save or help. The beneficiaries should be us but that is not so. I urge the Minister to ensure that before the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) issues any licences, they have to insist that there is a Kenyan component involved in it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in fact, let me inform the Minister that because of the traffic jams on our roads, there is process of incorporating a company to airlift passengers from the airport to the City of Nairobi because it can take you two hours from the airport to the City centre. I hope that when that company is formed, he will demand that Kenyans have a share in it because we do not want people coming from elsewhere and reaping our sweat."
}