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{
    "id": 212320,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/212320/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 181,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kosgey",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 177,
        "legal_name": "Henry Kiprono Kosgey",
        "slug": "henry-kosgey"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, why has it not been possible to increase the length of classified roads? It is because we are spending time and money re-building the roads that were built in previous years. That is a failure in road maintenance. If we could maintain the roads--- Maintaining does not mean waiting until it is completely gone. That way, you will actually be doing construction afresh. So, you are taking two steps forward and three backwards. All those roads will be destroyed and you will rebuild them afresh. I know the Minister knows very well the road from Kisii to Kilgoris. I travelled on it recently. A few years back, it was good. Now, it needs complete reconstruction. So the Kshs300 million which the Minister is requesting for road maintenance sometimes goes to waste. The engineers only patch those potholes. They patch the big ones and leave the small ones. Next week, the small one is bigger than the one they had patched. So, the road really never gets done. That money goes completely to waste. We should have a very well documented programme on road maintenance. That way, money allocated to the Ministry could be used to build new roads, and not to reconstruct the ones that they did last year. Otherwise, I fully agree with the Minister that, in spite of an increase in the allocation by 59 per cent, a lot of money is required to bring our roads to what you might actually call a reasonable state. We will support him whenever he asks for more money. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister has mentioned some of the roads that are being done this year in various areas. I heard him say that he is only waiting to patch the Chavakali-Kapsabet Road. I did not hear what he is going to do with Kapsabet-Mosoriot and Nandi Hills-Kapsabet roads. Those roads do not just need patching, Mr. Minister! They need re-carpeting. The state in which they are does not require little patching here and there. We need to re-carpet them in order to save that investment. Otherwise, next year, they will need to be constructed afresh. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the constituency money, that is the Kshs12 million, that may not be much. But that is what the Kenya Roads Board could give us. We would like that money to be spent well. In some constituencies, we do not see what that Kshs12 million has done. We have made suggestions to the Kenya Roads Board and the Ministry on how that money should be used. It should be used the way the road access roads money was being used. Let it be labour intensive. Let the local people build the roads themselves, using simple tools. That means they should have a tractor, trailer and a shovel. That is the way we used to build roads under the rural access roads programme. That way, the money could go a long way in actually achieving something. At the moment, the road engineers award the tenders to themselves, supervise themselves and pay themselves. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to talk about the classification of roads. We have been waiting for the classification of roads for the last several years. I hope something will be done to classify our various roads. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}