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"content": "options. I would like to believe that the statement that had been made earlier by His Excellency the President that opportunity to use long-term bonds to raise money for the road construction is something that will be considered and that the three authorities will have the flexibility to explore creatively other opportunities for raising funds for roads. Even more so, I do hope that these authorities will have the managerial flexibility and mandate to be able to fast-track the concessioning of some of the heavily used roads. In fact, we can bring on board private sector investment to expand our road network and improve the quality of our roads. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the number of vehicles that are on the roads has increased tremendously in the last five years. It is only logical that we must have commensurate expansion and improvement of our roads in order to accommodate the increased traffic that is clearly seen everywhere, especially in the urban areas and even on the major highways. Mr. Speaker, Sir, another development which I do hope that the Minister is aware of is the number of heavy commercial vehicles. Until four years ago, the 40-tonne trucks were hardly seen on our roads. However, today, indeed, as you travel towards western Kenya, there are probably more of the 40-tonne trucks crisscrossing that area across into Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania and, of course, now in Southern Sudan than even the small vehicles. This is a clear testimony that we need to expand and improve our roads if we truly believe in making and retaining Kenya as the major trading nation in this sub-region. Without a good transport system to support manufacturing and agriculture, we cannot develop this economy and Vision 2030 then will become a mirage. So, it is extremely important that this idea that the Minister has brought on board; of setting up these three authorities should, in fact, be extended to the railway system. I think it is high time we also had an authority dealing with railways and charged with the responsibility of encouraging private sector investment in the railways sub-sector. By so doing, we can also expand railway services to various parts of the country. We can also connect this country to our regional neighbouring markets of northern Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia and even Somalia. Mr. Speaker, Sir, yesterday, my colleagues, particularly hon. Maoka Maore, did talk about re-classification of roads. It is long overdue. There are many roads in this country. If you look at their potential in terms of the economic sectors they serve, they are still \"D\" and E\" Class roads. They are being given pittance in terms of allocation of funds and yet, they are moving volumes of high value produce. I have for example roads that are serving the dairy sector. I have in mind the roads serving the fisheries sector where virtually all the roads are Class \"E\" and below. Most of them are unclassified. It is a pity that we feel very proud when we say that we are a major fish and dairy exporter within the region. And, of course, we are major exporter of horticultural crops. We need the exercise of re-classification of our roads. This is the only way we can give the roads the classification which is commensurate with their strategic economic and security status. Without that, then we will not maximise and optimise on the opportunities that are available in every corner of our country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the Minister that, at long last, we are now seeing some work being done on the Mai-Mahiu-Narok Road. That road is extremely important. That area is a major agricultural sector area. It also opens up the rest of Kenya towards the west and, of course, to northern Tanzania. It is also serving the tourist sector. It becomes totally embarrassing when you see many tourists in tourist vans going up and down because of the potholes. I want to thank the Minister, therefore, for taking a bold step and moving the contractors on that road and clearly demonstrating that he is determined to improve that road. My prayer is that the Minister will ensure that, that road will be built to high quality, so that it can accommodate heavy commercial vehicles. I still would like to emphasise that we must invest in heavy-duty roads, so that we allow heavy 1786 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 13, 2007 commercial vehicles to move commodities across our countries to various market destinations. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other point I would like to talk about is the standard setting. It is absolutely imperative that we must have standards for specific roads classifications. We must ensure that those standards are understood and complied with. One of the biggest problems we have had in this country is that we give specifications in terms of materials and work, say, to Class \"B\" roads, but what actually is done on those roads cannot sustain the kind of vehicles which are envisaged to use that kind of classification of roads. So, setting standards and ensuring that we have enough engineers who will ensure compliance, supervise the work and ensure that those standards are adhered to, is absolutely important. In this respect, I want to appeal to the Minister not to ignore the necessity to build the human resources we need to construct and supervise roads. I am not so sure of the current status of the number of engineers that we have in this country, and those who can work with them as supervisors. However, I would like to encourage the Minister to have a meeting with all our universities, especially the faculties that deal with the Ministry. This will ensure that we have human resource being developed and have a clear succession management of our engineers. This will ensure that we have enough even to export engineering services to our neighbouring countries. Without adequate and high quality human resources in form of engineers and technical officers to design and supervise road construction, we are not going to sustain that sub-sector, which is so important. If we had clear standards and officers, then we would not have had a situation which is embarrassing; where the Government Spokesman who holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications pretends that he can actually inspect and condemn the work of an engineer. This is really unfortunate! I would like to believe that, that incident will never be repeated in this country. We are a fairly sophisticated and civilised country and we do not want to embarrass ourselves the way we did during that particular incident. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would also like to appeal to the Minister to consider the issue of technology. As a young student, I happen to have visited India in 1983. I saw a situation where, because India such an abundant labour, they have more labour-based technology to do roads; maintain and build them. They did not have sufficient capital in terms of heavy machinery but they had a lot of human resources. Currently, we have a huge reservoir of human resources; young men, who are looking for anything to do. If you ask them: \"What job would you like me to get you?\" They say: \"Any job!\" \"Any job\" should include road construction. Right now, we have a Swedish Government-sponsored Roads 2000 Programme which is labour-based. What is particularly encouraging is that these groups, having been trained at the Kisii Highway Institute, are using their hands with minimum equipment and they are doing an excellent job in terms of opening up and maintaining roads in the rural countryside. We can do so! I believe that with less expenses, we can open up more roads and maintain them. I do not see why the Public Works Department (PWD)--- I think it is being used because PWD in the colonial days, they used to work with their hands and we have very good roads. I still remember seeing some of those roads as a youth. Why were they successful and yet they were labour-based, largely speaking? So, the necessity to have the right mix between machinery and human resource, given that we have more available human resources, is something that I would like to appeal to the Minister to consider. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the question of ensuring that various sectors are opened up and stimulated to enable our economy grow, is so important. If you look at what is superficially considered as the Arid and Semi-Arid lands, there is enormous opportunity for those areas to contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country in terms of livestock, tourism, honey production and so many other things. If you look, for example, today, in the emerging markets, we have products like Aloe Vera which can do extremely well in the ASAL areas. Currently, you can hardly satisfy the June 13, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1787 demand and yet that particular commodity and many others, including the Neem tree, can do extremely well in the so-called ASAL areas. We have Lake Turkana teeming with fish. However, the fish grow and die out of old age. I can be quoted on that! The fish in Lake Turkana grows and die of old age because they are not being harvested by human beings because there is no road going there. I think it is unfortunate! If we construct a permanent road to Lake Turkana and put up cold storage facilities, we would increase our fish exports. Anybody coming from Europe must be looking at us and asking himself: \"What is wrong with these guys? They have opportunities but they are not taking full advantage of them.\" Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have not looked at the details of the allocations for roads for the coming Budget tomorrow. However, I hope that there was some sensitivity in looking at some of the strategic sectors and allocating money for roads to open those areas so that they can make a contribution towards the economic growth of our country. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
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