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"id": 212352,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/212352/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Nyachae",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Roads and Public Works",
"speaker": {
"id": 342,
"legal_name": "Simeon Nyachae",
"slug": "simeon-nyachae"
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"content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this chance to reply. May I start by thanking all the hon. Members who have made their contributions. Even those contributions which may have sounded a bit critical or harsh, we know that, that is how we get educated on our performance. When you think that you are too smart, you need somebody else to tell you, \"that jacket does not look good.\" Therefore, we appreciate what you have told us. Let me say that when we are discussing about roads and public works in our country, with our determination to see development, one can understand the frustration that hon. Members are expressing here on behalf of their people. This is quite understandable. But we should also appreciate the fact that this Ministry is dealing with a back-log of more than 12 years of roads which were not maintained. We do not want to blame the past Government. Maybe the resources were not there. We do not want to ask why they did not do it. But we are dealing with a back-log and we cannot ignore maintaining those roads which have deteriorated just because we want new roads. We should appreciate that we have that major problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want the House to appreciate the fact that the country has limited resources to cover all the roads that some hon. Members have mentioned here. You need July 25, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2791 money for education, health and other services. As a Ministry, this Financial Year, there is a short- fall in the allocation of more than 12 billion. If that had been included, perhaps, we would be having less frustrations being expressed here. But then, the Government cannot deny people other services because of the roads. Therefore, we should appreciate that there is a small cake, in terms of resources, which we are sharing all round. As we talk about our own constituencies and districts, there is no constituency which is satisfied that they have the roads that are good for them. Every constituency has road problems. The problems are not in one or two constituencies. It is nearly in all the constituencies. I can understand the frustrations that even the Chair is facing. When Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o talked about the World Bank, I felt embarrassed. They are our partners in development and yet what Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o said has a lot of substance because the road which he talked about, which goes to Garissa has taken more than one year of the World Bank study. Once you have given them that assignment and later kick them out, then all the development partners say that you do not want them and problems will crop up. So, there is a degree of perseverance that we have to face when that happens. Let us also appreciate the fact that the roads that we are doing are not for one district or constituency. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry talked about roads in Kajiado and his own constituency, Kajiado Central. But the truth of the matter is that, equatability is also important. Kajiado District including Kajiado Central, should be very grateful this year. They should not be complaining. They will have two roads done, at a cost of over Kshs2 billion. There is the Emali- Oloitokitok Road at a cost of more than Kshs1 billion and the Athi River-Namanga Road at a cost of another Kshs1 billion. Over and above that, feeder roads in that area of Kajiado District will take Kshs159 million. Now when you come here and just talk about Kshs12 million, that is not fair. What about the other areas? There is an hon. Member from Western Province who made a genuine request. He mentioned of a road that was being done and we ran short of money. We are looking for more money from China to complete it. That is a genuine request. But we do not do it through complaints. Give us encouragement. My senior officers are here and if you imply that they are doing nothing, then where are we going? I think you should also appreciate the little that we are doing so that we can give them encouragement. Where are you going to get other engineers to do the job? We should encourage our own people. We cannot condemn our own contractors, instead, we should enhance their capacity. We are even organizing training for them. For the highways, we are bringing in equipment to hire out to them so that we can build our capacity. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, some hon. Members talked about bringing in contractors from outside. That is true. The Chinese are coming in and they are doing well. But we do not want people to come in just to take our local funds. For external contractors who want to come in, their countries must come with some money to support our road construction. They should not just come and get contracts here and take our tax-payers money out of the country. We are discussing with other countries and before the middle of next month, Malaysians are coming to negotiate with us. We discussed with Indian contractors last month and we want to encourage all these people to come. However, they should not just come to take our money; they should bring in their money and technology. When we talk about public-private sector partnership, this is something that we are encouraging. It has been discussed and the policy framework is being worked out. We want to bring in our own ideas and those of the investors, so that private investors who come in should know that they are working with us on our own specifications so that they do not do it for the purpose of only making money. Public-private sector partnership means involving the tax-payers' money as well. So, we must have a clearly laid down policy arrangement with them so that the tax- 2792 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 25, 2007 payer is not exploited by the private investor while doing our roads. That is why we are negotiating. In the case of Nairobi by-passes, we have already received some quotations and we are negotiating. We must agree on what they are going to charge the road users at the toll stations. If you leave it to them, they will exploit our people and there will be an outcry from road users. Those are some of the technical areas that we have to go into. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, hon. Members talked about the cost of road construction yesterday. This is an exercise already being undertaken with the help of the World Bank. In fact, the study is being done in other parts of Africa, including Ghana and other African countries. From there, they will go to India. We can then look at their specifications and the cost per unit. We shall include that when we will be evaluating our own contract quotations. Also, our consultants will be in the picture of that report, so that we can improve not only the cost, but also the quality of constructing our roads. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, yesterday, there was talk about hiring out of the new equipment that we bought to assist the contractors. Now, this equipment was meant to improve the capacity and performance of the contractors. It was never intended that these contractors should, again, go and make profit from the third party. That is what has been going on in some places. We do not want that to go on. If a particular area wants to hire out its equipment, then it should get in touch with our Mechanical Department branch and convince it, and it will get the same cost as what the contractor is being charged. Over and above that, I want to mention to this House that we are planning to source more equipment, because this is an experiment. Since we have seen that it is working, we will move ahead and negotiate to get more funds in the form of loans, to purchase more equipment for this purpose. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for the information of this House, the classification of roads exercise is going on right now. In fact, we are soon going to come up with indications as to how we can re-classify roads continuously, as opposed to waiting until the District Roads Committees (DRCs) or District Development Committees (DDCs) ask us to do so. We must continuously go through the traffic arrangements and know their movements and so on. Hon. Kosgey complained about too many bumps on the roads, yet, he is a Member of a DRC. I wish he was here. It is the DRCs and traffic department, which recommend where they want bumps to be constructed on roads. If you recommend and then come to complain here, what do you expect us to do? I think that is politics which does not help us here. On the issue of construction of new roads, I am sorry, the hon. Members must accept that the existing roads must also be maintained. If we do not maintain the ones which exist now, what is going to happen to them? I wish hon. Karume was here--- At one time a \"big\" businessman died in Nairobi. When his body was being transported home for burial, the vehicle got stuck on a road that was tarmacked during the regime of the late President Mzee Kenyatta. You can see the condition of our roads even in those areas where some hon. Members allege that more money has been allocated. The problem is experienced all over the country. But, we must not feel despondent. We are going to achieve and get results. If we move at this pace, within the next five years, we will be complaining about the improvement of roads in terms of specifications only. This is because we are doing the improvement of roads, but quality is going to be the issue in another five years. But between now and then, we must struggle. Give me more money and an enlarged team. Of course, the money must also be released quickly. Some hon. Members here are quite right when they say that contractors are not moving fast enough. This happens also as a result of the system that we have put in place, but I am not complaining. Our own officers, both in the Treasury and other Government departments, sometimes, do not realise the speed at which people want to July 25, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2793 move. They move slowly in approving papers before releasing money to the engineers and contractors. We must all wake up and do a better job, because the taxpayers have paid money. Right now, this House has already authorized expenditure, but one month is gone, yet, the Ministry has not received the money. I have not started working on those projects because I have not received the money. I hope I will receive it this week. So, we must all move fast. The issue of axle load is the den of corruption. It has been a headache to all Kenyans. Over and above that, if you look at the law, it has been very soft on the transporters who break it. The fine that the transporters pay for breaking the law is, actually, the same amount which they give in corrupt deals. So, they do not care. A transporter would just say: \"Let me go and be fined.\" Now, if the hon. Members could look at the Roads Bill which we amended recently, they would realise that penalties are going to be raised. We are also going to issue a Gazette Notice. For example, we are going to deny certain axle loads from being on our roads. This is because it does not matter what kind of roads we construct--- Recently, I viewed the feature by a Nation Television Station reporter who went round from Nairobi to Kisumu, Eldoret and so on. It was a very interesting feature that I enjoyed watching. He was telling us the truth, because he was driving and we could see the potholes. These are the problems that we face. But who creates those problems? The reporter reached a place where the road had been constructed recently and noticed that it had valleys. These valleys were created by the heavy vehicles. So, these transporters must be told by all Kenyans that they have exploited them for too long. This is because it is the Kenyans who are paying taxes in order to construct those roads. So, when you see us being tough about it, hon. Members must support us here, instead of coming to ask me questions. Even if it means confiscating the overloaded vehicles, we shall do it. In addition to that, to deal with the corruption in that area, we are changing the weigh bridge system. We have now introduced the mobile weigh bridges. We are also creating a satellite system, with a centralized monitoring system, showing how much a vehicle which has passed through a mobile weigh bridge weighs. The number of that vehicle is also shown. We are already at an advance stage of implementing this system. This will ensure that if an officer or policeman out there agrees with a transporter who has excess axle load beyond what is approved, and he allows him to pass through the weigh bridge, that officer will also be taken to court and charged with corruption. This is because that is evidence. So, we are moving fast to harmonise the correction. The Ministry of Transport will be issuing a Gazette Notice. It has already issued one, but it did not touch on the axle load; on the basis of the way we had agreed. So, it has to be amended in order for that anomaly to be corrected. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, hon. Members talked about the Roads 2000 Programme. It is true that the Roads 2000 Programme has actually been under the umbrella of the external donors in the five districts. However, we have now decided that the Roads 2000 Programme will cover every district in this country in order to create employment and let some of these access roads to be done manually. So, we are moving on and, actually, one-month-and-a-half ago, I made that announcement although some hon. Members may not have gotten that information at that time. With regard to implementation of projects, it is true that we would like to move faster. However, we are faced with the problem of contractors. I know we have the problem of consulting engineers. We have a problem because even as I talk to you right now, I am short of more than 50 engineers. When the World Bank and other donors disappeared or stopped giving us money for roads, many of our engineers went out of the country. We have many Kenyan architects and civil engineers working elsewhere outside Kenya. We have to create a climate which will bring them back. You know you cannot just get a qualified engineer from the university overnight and then expect him to be a resident road engineer. It cannot work! So, at the moment, some of you complain about the resident engineers, the district roads engineers and so on. Let us help them to 2794 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 25, 2007 improve their performance rather than condemning them. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, at this juncture, let me say that all Members of Parliament are members of the District Roads Committees (DRCs). They should not say that the District Road Engineers do not tell them how much money they got and how they have utilised it. It is up to hon. Members to control them! If they do not listen to the DRC, then write to us informing us that the DRCs decided this and that, but the engineers have not followed those decisions. But if hon. Members leave the officers to do things the way they want and yet they are just seated there only to complain, now who is to share this problem? Let us all take responsibility. For me, in all my life, I believe that if I am given responsibility to sit in a committee, I will make sure that the committee works. That is the responsibility of hon. Members because after all, they are the ones who are answerable to the people. So, we should not allow one individual, a technical man, who does not know what mama is talking about with regard to reaching the market, to do things in his own way. You should tell him! With regard to the policy of building, this problem has been there for a long time. There are too many quacks in this country, including in the cities. We have insisted upon architects and quantity surveyors that we must correct this situation. I am glad to say that the Association of Architects and that of Quantity Surveyors have gone ahead and drafted by-laws, which, once gazetted, will then eliminate this problem of quacks--- Even local authorities, like the city councils, must follow those by-laws. One of the smallest things, but very important, and which will be required in the by-laws is that every building will not be put up before the erection of a sign board which shows who the architect, the quantity surveyor and the contractor are so that the qualifications of all those people are known. So, when a problem comes up on the building, it will be easier for us to know the people to follow. So, that Association has done a good job and we are going gazette that. It is not that we are asleep in dealing with this kind of problem. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in summary, let me also mention about implementation of the recent Bill, which was approved in this House; that is, the creation of the institutions. What this House approved has necessitated the creation of an interim committee to plan for the offices, where they would operate and things like the initial budget and so on. That committee has already been established even before I see the assent of the President. My approach is this: By December, 2007, these institutions will be gazetted and become operational. However, that committee must follow the law as approved by this House. Therefore, we are moving and not delaying in implementing all this. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said all these, I am not going to tell you that all roads will be ready tomorrow. Let us do this: Let us agree that resources are limited, but we should utilise them to the best of our ability. Finally, I want to inform this House that hon. Members, as representatives of the people--- One clear understanding we have in our Ministry is that the doors for hon. Members must be open in every engineer's office so that they can go and seek clarifications. Hon. Members can get details about the programme, and if they are not satisfied, my doors are also open. Therefore, let us work together. I know that this time hon. Members are determined to show their own people that something is being done. All that I can say is that it is being done. With regard to the Vote that we have given hon. Members this time, we have gone backwards over several years to look at how the Ministry has distributed money for roads for the last 15 years. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to challenge any hon. Member to show me whether this Vote, this time round, is more equitable or less equitable than in the past Votes. If it is less equitable, they should show me which year equatability was exercised the way we have done it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you look amused because of your roads. This time I was very July 25, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2795 happy that you did not donate the money back to me, but we understand hon. Members' feelings and concerns. We will do what we can, and where possible, we will look for supplementary money to fulfil the urgent requests. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to request hon. Members to support and approve this Vote."
}