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"id": 212651,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/212651/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"id": 326,
"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was saying that this parliament should gave the Ministry the authority to organise itself in such a manner that it can be more effective in utilising the resources of the people of Kenya in infrastructure. We, therefore, hope that most of our roads will be done with expertise. As you have realised, today, if a road is earmarked for construction, the process of consultancy, design, awarding of the tender, mobilisation and actual implementation takes close to two years. That is two years of public resources being held when members of the public are suffering. I urge the Ministry to reduce the processes of implementation such that when this House allocates funds for a road in a certain financial year, that road or part of it, should be done in that fiscal year. If that was to be done, then there would be no need to return funds to the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year when people are suffering from lack of proper infrastructure. I am saying this because I know of a road in my constituency, which I come from, which was allocated funds last year and has also been allocated funds this year. It has taken more than one year and the construction work has not started. I do not know when work on the road will commence. This is the Daraja Mbili-Nyatieko-Miruka and the other roads connected to it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me turn to the Maai-Mahiu-Narok Road which was awarded more than two years ago. The contractor has been busy constructing his camp for the last two years. The damage that the road has caused the public is enormous. It cannot be quantified. I wish that once a road contract is awarded, the contractor should come on site after two to three months and start to construct the road. We must have a clause in our implementation policy that requires immediate construction as soon as the contract is awarded. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have got funds, but I know they are not adequate. But it does not serve us well when you allocate funds which are inadequate, and those inadequate funds are not fully utilised in a fiscal year. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also want to see capacity building in the Ministry. I believe local contractors have not been well trained. The work they are given is not done in time and it is not up to standard. Because of lack of local capacity, I believe the Ministry could import expatriate firms to construct roads. That is because the development of a country is determined by the development of its infrastructure. When our goods or products cannot reach the market, this country suffers. The poor farmer and industrialist suffer because he or she cannot get a return on his or her investments. July 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2705 Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have seen demolition of structures on road reserves. I can give one example of my friend, Mr. Chepkonga's building in Loresho. He had sunk all his savings from his working life to the tune of Kshs30 million in putting up that house. That building was demolished and yet, we cannot see a road on that site. Why do you demolish buildings when you have no intention or capacity to construct roads? When we demolish those buildings, we must be fair! Let us be human. If a person has constructed a building worth Kshs30 million, maybe, we could ask him to give us a certain amount of money, maybe Kshs2 million or Kshs5 million to buy a bypass, so that we do not have to demolish somebody's lifetime investment. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there should be a change of policy in the Ministry, especially for areas which have a lot of rainfall in a year. For example, areas such as Gusiiland, the Kipsigis Highlands, Nandi Hills, Western Province--- Many parts of Central Province receive so much rain that if you grade a road today, it will be washed away within a week or month. It has to be graded again. We should change our policy and allocate adequate funds to do single-seal tarmacking. It is going to be expensive but, once you have done it, it can last for two, three, four, five or even ten years! We have seen that in the former tea roads, which had single-seal tarmacking. They lasted for years and years on end! Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are running short of murram, especially where I come from. You cannot get murram because there is no land to excavate it from. So, the Ministry must change its policy to go for single or double-seal tarmacking in areas where rains wash away graded or gravelled roads. We should also change our policy so that we could have maintenance gangs at various places. We used to have them before. When a road was destroyed, those gangs could move in and maintain it. In so doing, we could also achieve another advantage for Kenyans - employment for our youth. If we had, say, five gangs in each constituency, and each gang has 100 people, that is employment for 500 people in a constituency. If you employ them throughout the country, 105,000 people will be employed to maintain our roads. They will get jobs to maintain themselves and, therefore, reduce crime in this country. That policy should be implemented by the Ministry. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is equipment which is being leased out to contractors. The Ministry should consider leasing that equipment to Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) projects at a subsidised rate. Recently, we hired a bulldozer and paid Kshs1 million. It stayed in my constituency for only 14 days, Kshs1 million was gone! It had not even done one and half kilometres of the road. It is too expensive for CDF! The Minister should consider leasing out that equipment to CDF at a subsidised rate. CDF is public funds. He should not lease them out to CDF at the same rates he is leasing them out to contractors. Finally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on specific roads like Naivasha-Kericho-Kisumu, Kericho-Kisii and Maai-Mahiu-Narok-Kisii, the Ministry should move steadfastly and make sure that those roads are re-carpeted, so that they could be useful to the people. That way, people will not have to spend a lot of money because of those roads. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, just to close off, we do have bumps. The Ministry should construct bumps where systems require those bumps. For example, one should be built between Parliament Buildings and County Hall. Another one should be built at Mosocho in my constituency. The Ministry should re-classify roads. The ones which were classified during the colonial days as class \"B\", \"D\" or \"E\" have never been re-classified, although there has been a change in traffic flow on those roads. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}