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"id": 212640,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Poghisio",
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"speaker": {
"id": 202,
"legal_name": "Samuel Losuron Poghisio",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute and support this Vote. The Ministry of Roads and Public Works is one of the core Ministries that supports infrastructure. Whether we do actually get roads or not, we would like to support this Ministry. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, my fear is that year in, year out, the Minister comes here and we give money to the Ministry. I have one quarrel with this Ministry in that even when monies have been allocated to a district or to a constituency like Kacheliba, most of it is returned to the Treasury 2702 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 24, 2007 because of lack of capacity. I remember that priorities were set. We were given some money under the security roads. However, most of that money was returned to Treasury. This is the problem with the Ministry. It has to kind of stretch out the country and enable the roads to be constructed. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I come from a constituency that has no tarmac road. I heard one Member say that her constituency might be the only one without a tarmac road in this country. The only tarmacked road I have seen in my constituency is in the yard of a police station. That is all. We have no road per se that is tarmacked. Yet, the Government has hired all the most qualified engineers in this Ministry. I want to challenge the Ministry that while the Minister is in charge of that docket, let them try and do something about introducing an element of a tarmacked road in Kacheliba Constituency. Let it be an element of tarmac. Let there be even one or two kilometres of tarmac road, so that we can say that we are now in the mainstream of our road infrastructure. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, is basically classifying the roads. Most of the roads that pass through Kacheliba Constituency are going either to neighbouring districts or to other countries namely, Uganda and Sudan. Classifications are very interesting thus making it difficult even to get funding. So, re-classifying those roads as per international classes will do us a lot of good because we are connected to Uganda. Even the names and the descriptions of them should read \"Uganda Border\" but then you are given a class that does not even attract the funding. So, re-classifying the roads will be very useful. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would expect that in this day and age, when everybody knows in advance what has been allocated to them, the Ministry should be fair to all parts of this country. There are no two ways about it. If you gave good roads to one constituency last year, surely, and they are working on those roads, just look at other constituencies which have not been allocated that kind of money. We do not want to be following the officers later to ask them to allocate money to our roads. Since Independence, there has never been a tarmacked road in the whole of Kacheliba Constituency. It will not cost a lot of money to do a 200 kilometre tarmacked road from Kapenguria to Alale which is the new district headquarters for Pokot North District. It will not cost that much money, but you have to be reminded that there is such a place and that actually you can do it. The engineers can begin to design that road because when going about our business we might find that we will need good roads to go to those places. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad that the Minister of State for Administration and National Security is here. This morning, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) crossed into Kenya and shot at our people. They have taken our livestock, but Kenyan security forces cannot go to that place because there are no roads. So, when we do not plan for the roads we are making it difficult for the Minister of State for Provincial Administration and National Security even to send the police to pursue those forces. These are the UPDF coming ten kilometres into Kenya with mortars and tanks and then shooting indiscriminately at our people. It is very interesting in this day and age, that we cannot respond because in Asilong, the place where this happened yesterday, there are no roads beyond the borehole and to the border. So, they have take away our animals and we have raised this matter. It is a serious matter that I think will not require any more sitting down. The Government should begin to talk to Uganda Government about this. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to particularly take note that I come from a region that has serious security lapses and security roads are very much needful. This is the northern part of Kenya. When you design roads, let them reflect the design and terrain of an area. Let us not allocate Kshs1 million to a road. When allocating Kshs1 million or a few hundred thousands to a road, you are, basically, saying that you are doing so just to keep the name of the road alive. That money cannot make any road at all. We would like to ask the Minister to seriously consider the so- called marginalised areas. These are the areas which have not hitherto been considered in terms of tarmacking. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of the problems in the area that I come from, and many other July 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2703 areas which are similar to that one, is the serious run-off soil erosion that washes off roads from the hills. That occurs very frequently. In the past, the Government had road maintenance units after a certain number of kilometres of a road, but that was discontinued. There are no road maintenance units on roads any more. Once you see a road suffering from neglect for one year, the following year, you will think there was no road at all. I would just like to urge the Government to resuscitate or re-establish the maintenance units. The units can be run by the people in the villages and they should be taught how to maintain roads so that we can maximise on the use of the labour that is available. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to touch on the issue of road networking. In recent times, when the bridge at Kainuk on the Kitale-Lodwar Road broke down, I realised that the Ministry was at a loss on how to direct traffic to Lodwar. The road, which was given as an alternative route by the Ministry through the Press, was very misleading. It was leading people through the Turkwel Gorge, and then over through some very insecure and bad road. I thought that the Minister knew that the road that was used previously to Lodwar, before the tarmack one was constructed, is the one that goes through Kacheliba. There are no two ways about it. In fact, even now, it is good for the Ministry to reconstruct the road that goes through Kacheliba to Halale, Loya, Loringit and to Lodwar. That is the old Kitale-Lodwar Road that was used before the tarmack road that goes through Sigor was constructed. When we have a problem on one end, we should use it so that we can direct traffic properly. That way, Kacheliba and Turkana Central constituencies will benefit from a good road. It is also an alternative road to Sudan. If we construct it to good standards, we will have a good road that can take us to Sudan. I want the Ministry to know that I am, myself, cautious of the fact that areas in the north, including my own constituency, have not been prioritised in the past. I would like us to depart from that practice and begin to realise that we also need to reach places faster and safely. One area which has completely gone out of the district is the gravelling unit. What happened to the gravelling unit? It used to be very easy for that unit to take care of roads which are not necessarily tarmacked. We would approach this unit and it would put up for us an all-weather- road without necessarily calling for tarmack. Not all the roads will require to be tarmacked. The other one is the Bridges Unit. I realise that there is no quick response to the bridges' situation. Once a bridge is washed away, there is no quick response. It takes a very long time for any bailey bridge or emergency bridges to be brought in. I think that is an area which the Minister needs to strengthen in the Ministry. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am very happy that we can now hire graders and we have trucks that can be used to make roads, if we are using CDF money. However, I would like to appeal to the Minister that road networking is a very important part of the infrastructural development for the Vision 2030 and even for the industrialisation of this country, especially in areas which have not been connected to the mainstream Kenya, as it is the case with Kacheliba Constituency. I do not want to belabour a point that has been raised by many hon. Members, that grading of roads is a science. Many times, I see people who are operating graders running through the land and not grading the road. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}