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"id": 217626,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Manoti",
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"legal_name": "Stephen Kengere Monati",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I would like to commend the Minister for Finance for bringing before the House, and Kenyans, a very balanced Budget. Since this Government took over, we have seen quite a number of projects initiated all over the nation. Wherever you go, you can see roads being constructed and electricity cables installed. With the introduction of the Free Primary Education Programme, a number of students have enroled in primary schools. Even parents who were not able to take their children to school are now able to, at least, buy school uniforms for their children, because other facilities are provided for free by the Government through the taxes that we pay. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I commend the Ministry of Roads and Public Works for the good work it has done, they are somehow a bit slow. You can see a project which is supposed to take 12 months taking three years. This could be because of poor funding, or poor feasibility studies before the work is started or poor inspection by the Ministry engineers. You can see the construction of a small bridge costing about Kshs4 million taking two financial years before it is completed. What we are asking the Government to do, especially the Ministry of Roads and Public Works, is that when it starts such small projects, it should complete them within reasonable time, instead of taking two years or three years to do so. Such projects, if completed in time, will be very useful to the mwananchi . A number of contractors doing our roads, especially the major roads, are not doing a good job. If I may mention the Maai-Mahiu-Narok Road, for instance, which is a major road and important for promotion of our tourism sector and for our own use in the transportation of farm 1950 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 20, 2007 produce from Narok area, the section being constructed is so bad that you cannot use it now. Two wide vehicles cannot bypass each other. The contractor has left some areas in very bad condition. A number of accidents have taken place there, and you can see more coming up, unless the contractor is asked to make that road properly for use by motor vehicles. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, while I am also commending the Ministry, it has forgotten our feeder roads. You find District Engineers concentrating on classified roads and forgetting about the feeder roads. What we are saying here is that feeder roads are very important. Without them, classified roads would not do what is expected of them. Farmers ferry their farm produce from the interior to the market using feeder roads. Therefore, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works, through its District Roads Engineers, should take care of feeder roads, which are very important. Some feeder roads lead to dispensaries in the rural areas. If they are not done, how can patients be transported from dispensaries in the interior of the rural areas to towns? We can see that the Ministry of Health is trying to improve medical facilities. However, they are quite far away. A number of dispensaries have been constructed through the CDF, and they are gazetted. Surprisingly, you will find a dispensary having one nurse and whenever this nurse goes to collect medicines from the district or wherever, the facility is closed. I am asking the Ministry to increase the number of workers, especially the nurses in the newly created dispensaries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, these dispensaries do not operate during weekends. Most of these dispensaries are in the rural areas where no vehicles can go. So, if they do not open them during weekends, what happens to patients who are not able to move to health centres and district hospitals which are in major towns? We want the Ministry of Health to change their regulations of closing down dispensaries during weekends. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, insecurity, which most hon. Members have talked about, is so high. When it gets to around 6.00 p.m. in the evening, everybody is worried whether they will be there the following day. It is a major worry to all Kenyans and to all hon. Members in this House. As much as the Ministry or the Office of the President is trying, through the Ministry of State for Administration and National Security, there is so much which is required to be done. Many times, the Minister himself has promised this House that the assistant chiefs and chiefs are going to be given askaris to be guarding people in the rural areas. In my constituency, Bobasi, there is no single chief who has administration policemen and as we all know, a number of chiefs have been killed like any ordinary man in this nation. If these people are given administration policemen, even those thugs or criminals who have moved from towns to rural markets will be controlled. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that the Government has created a number of districts, which is very good. But we wonder how the headquarters of these new districts are going to be constructed. I know that my district headquarters, which is Gucha, and which was created way back in 1996, to date, the structure you can see there is what was constructed by"
}