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"id": 212667,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wambora",
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"legal_name": "Martin Nyaga Wambora",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very critical Vote of a very critical sector; the infrastructure sector, specifically, the roads sector. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the development of infrastructure is a prerequisite to the development of the economy. We are aware that the most visible feature or mark of development is infrastructure. Backward economies have very poor or few roads, while developed countries have many, very good roads which are well-developed. So, we cannot understate the importance of this Ministry and, especially, the roads sector. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, having made general remarks, I want to look at the progress made since the current Minister for Roads and Public Works took charge. I think we have seen a steady growth of the roads budget. We have seen more roads being rehabilitated and maintained. I wish to congratulate the Minister and his officers. We have seen more roads being done all over the country. We have also seen a bit of equatability unlike previously. Having said that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me now turn to the challenges facing this sector because the devil is in the details. One of them has been mentioned by the previous speakers. The most outstanding thing is the procurement procedures. We are aware of too much red tape in awarding tenders for road designs and construction. It is taking far too long between a decision to make a road and designing it. It is taking too long between the designing of a road and awarding of contracts. It is also taking too long between the awarding of contracts and actual construction. This is a disaster. Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, we must learn from countries like Tanzania. We do not need to go to South Africa. Let us learn from Tanzania, which is our neighbour here. From the time they established TAN Authority, which takes care of roads, we have seen the development of roads in that country. Their roads are good. I have driven at night from Dar es Salaam to Namanga. It was safe because the roads are wide and they have no potholes. I cannot understand why Tanzania must 2712 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 24, 2007 have better roads than Kenya and yet we are richer. That one beats me. The destruction of our roads by overloaded vehicles is another challenge. I have seen transport vehicles which, on reaching Namanga, offload their cargo to two other vehicles so that they can cross to the Tanzanian side. That means that our rules for overweight vehicles are a bit too lax and we need to pass other laws or implement the existing laws to ensure that we do not allow overloaded vehicles on our roads. There was a time when a company had to move a boat to Mwanza. Tanzanian authorities refused and so it had to be moved through the Mombasa-Kisumu Road and then cross over to Mwanza. That shows that we do not care about the destruction of our roads by overweight motor vehicles. The other challenge is limited funds. Granted that we have seen upward increase of the Budget since 2003--- Since the Kibaki administration took over, we have seen steady progress of better funding, but we are still very far from an optimal funding of this sector because it is the most important. We cannot expect any development in this country without good infrastructure. When you go to Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, you can see clearly why it is the economic super power of this continent. We, therefore, need more funding for our roads. We may not get all the funds from the Government or the taxpayer because we need the other sectors like health and education to be also developed. However, we have other sources of funding and we can copy from Britain. Britain's infrastructure began to improve tremendously from 2003 when they begun using Infrastructure Development Bonds (IDBs) not for recurrent expenditure, but for capital development. That is the way to go. Indeed, Britain, is now geared to take over the third position from Germany in the world in 2012 because of that policy. The country began to grow in 2003. Last year, the Minister for Finance talked about the Infrastructure Development Bonds, but we have not seen them. We have met fund managers in the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade and they told us that they can raise the billions of shillings that we need, in fact, as much as Kshs60 billion to construct a dual carriageway from Mombasa to Busia, for instance. We have funds, if only we can use the right methods to raise those funds. We should not over-rely on the taxpayers. I would like to talk about the other ways of acquiring more funds for developing our infrastructure. We have been told about concessioning even by the Minister himself. I am talking about concessioning of major highways and bypasses. We have big economies like China, Kuwait and Korea. They are ready and capable to participate in concessioning of roads in Kenya. Why can we not approach them so that they can do the three ways? They can do the express way, the bypasses and the flyovers. We should not just rely on the poor taxpayers because we have other sources. By doing that, we shall raise a lot of funds for both rural and urban roads. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me now look at the critical roads, which require special attention; the highways, the tourist roads, for example, in Maasai Mara Game Reserve, the Mombasa-Malindi Road and so on. We need very good roads in highland agricultural areas, like Runyenjes, where we grow tea and coffee. I want to thank the Minister and his Ministry because we can now see some activities in that region. We can assure him that we are going to maximise on those tarmacked roads once they are completed because we grow a lot of tea, coffee and macadamia. With regard to the roads to our airports, I cannot understand why we cannot have a smooth road from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to the city centre. It is only in Kenya where you find roads leading to the airports, which are meant to be our marketing zones, very bumpy. It is really not understandable because the roads to airports are supposed to be the best and very wide. In fact, they should be dual carriageways. So, all roads to the international airport should be very good. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, I would like to talk about the District Roads Committees July 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2713 (DRCs). I am the chairman of the Embu one. I can assure you that, even as a chairman, I have no influence over the district officials. They do what they want and they do not care about that. We are tired of this! Why can these funds not be moved to the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) Committees where they can be better utilised? We are not happy with the way the funds are being utilised by the DRCs, especially by the secretariat. It is high time we transferred these funds to the CDF committees, through the Miscellaneous Amendments Bill. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support."
}