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"id": 218426,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Karaba",
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"id": 232,
"legal_name": "Daniel Dickson Karaba",
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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to sincerely thank the Minister for bringing this Bill to Parliament. From the outset, I would like to support the Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, roads are very important arteries of development. Without roads, we cannot talk about economic development in any country. I believe that is what we are doing here. We are trying to imagine what the future holds for this country. You can imagine the number of perishable products that we have in our agricultural sector. Without proper roads, those products will not be accessible. They cannot be processed and turned into finished products. So, if we were to think about roads, let us, first of all, think about areas which are potentially agricultural. These are areas where coffee, tea and French beans are grown. We should also think of the places where irrigation is carried out on daily basis. Those are the areas we need to improve roads, so that the agricultural products can access markets. We should be able to collect the produce in time to avoid them rotting. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you go to many tea factories, you will see the kind of rotting of produce that takes place in collection centres. This is due to lack of adequate road transport. Some of the roads connecting these factories are inaccessible, particulary during wet seasons. Many times, we find tea trucks stuck in mud for long hours. This causes great loss to farmers. I have witnessed this in Kirinyaga District where I come from. We grow a lot of tea there. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, without proper roads, therefore, we will lose money, not only of Kirinyaga and Kerugoya/Kutus farmers, but also the Kenyan economy will be affected. This is what it translates to. This Bill seeks to come up with a policy through which the rural access roads will be improved. This is something we can support because it will boost the economic development in the rural areas. More so, the income per capita of the majority of farmers in the Republic will be improved. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you will also note that without proper road system, we will promote rural-urban migration. We need to encourage most of our population to be in the rural areas. We need to encourage young people to remain in our rural set-ups, so that they can provide the labour needed. I, therefore, would like to encourage labour-intensive industries in rural areas, so that people do not move to urban centres where they create criminal activities. This can only be achieved through the development of good roads. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also have some commodities which are very bulky. It has been said here that we have very heavy trucks transporting bulky goods. Some of these trucks transporting these goods destroy our roads, beautiful as they might be, after construction. I would imagine that there should be collaborative effort from both the Ministry of Roads and Public Works and the Ministry of Transport, so that we increase the hauling of the railway network in our country. Let us have trains transport some of these bulky goods, so that we ease congestion and preserve our roads. It has been seen in developed countries that certain tonnage of trucks are not seen on their roads. Let us do the same, so that the excess load can be transported by railway. However, I have seen that there has been very serious sabotaging of the road safety network in this country. Big names are involved and they prefer transporting bulky goods using trucks instead of 1794 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 13, 2007 railway, thinking that railway transport is slower. That should be discouraged, so that the railway market is increased. In that way, our roads will be better. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you also notice that road construction in this country takes a very long time before it starts off. I have in mind a road in my constituency which has taken about five years before any work starts. Even now, I do not know whether it will be tarmacked this year or not. I am told that the design works began in 2002. It went on through 2003 and review of design was done in 2004. Up to now, the design works is still going on. The procurement has not started. This is a very long process which I think should be shortened by the Minister concerned. Once the roads have been designed, it should take a very short time before it is constructed to completion. We have some roads which were abandoned as early as 1987 and 1989. There are such two roads in Kirinyaga; Kagio-Baricho Road and Baricho-Kerugoya Road. These are the D424 and D425 roads. They were abandoned by the then Government in the year 1987. To date, nothing has happened. I am, therefore, asking the Minister concerned to note this. The roads were initially designed to pass through a very important agricultural area. Even today, five years after the NARC Government came to power, nothing has happened. These roads should have been tarmacked by now. I hope that, tomorrow, there will be something on paper to suggest that these two roads would be tarmacked. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also note that there have been increased accidents on our roads. Very many accidents have been caused by the poor state of roads, particularly on our highways. I note with very great concern that the Thika-Nairobi Road is a killer road. Every other day, and almost every other hour, there is an accident happening on this road. The cause is the many potholes on the road. When you avoid one pothole, you land into another one. Before you get to the third pothole, you are in the fourth. In the process, you might land into a ditch. This has caused the loss of very many lives. I am, therefore, suggesting that much as we consider this Bill, we should have element of insurance. Road users, who might be ignorant of what is happening, should be paid for the loss of lives as soon as accidents happen. However, we should not wait until accidents happen. Let us repair our roads as soon as a pothole develops. That is what we see when we travel outside this country. When a crack develops on a road, it is sealed in summer. We should have routine maintenance instead of waiting until we have to do a total overhaul construction of a road once it develops potholes. Let us continue maintaining roads. That is the only way we can be seen as being serious on road usage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is also important that we encourage our youth to partake, particularly in the labour contracts. Let us include the labour-intensive techniques, so that our rural access roads are maintained by our youths. When we talk about employment, we should talk about employing the youth in the rural areas where they can take care of the rural access roads. This has happened in the past. I do not know why it is not taking place these days. It is also important to note that most rural access roads are very narrow. This is a result of unscrupulous farming techniques. Farmers have encroached into the roads to a point where some have been closed. The roads are not there! They have been narrowed to less than 20 metres width. Most rural access roads are so narrow that even a small car cannot pass through. This hinders development and accessibility of rural areas. So, we hope that this Bill will look into this, so that rural access roads are properly maintained with proper boundaries. Maybe local administration can be used to help in this. I hope that the Minister is listening because this is very serious. Rural access roads are not there in rural areas. Please, make sure the roads are maintained. Some of the roads have a width of two metres and others are five metres. We cannot even access some of schools in rural areas because some roads are closed by those unscrupulous farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is something that I have also noted in this country and outside the country; the kind of jam we are experiencing in Nairobi City can be June 13, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1795 stopped. We need to come up with the correct policies. Those bypasses that were suggested earlier on by the former Minister for Roads and Public Works, Mr. Raila, I do not know what has happened to them. I do not know whether they are still going on; the southern, northern and central links. We need to know what is happening. There was a very ambitions plan of the southern bypass, which was supposed to pass through Ngong Forest. I think this project has been abandoned. If this project was to continue, I am sure we would not be experiencing the kind of jams we are experiencing these days. This has really cost us in terms of man hours and a lot of money as we wait in the jams. It is even dangerous when you are not sure when you will get home and who is behind you, because sometimes, the traffic is almost at a standstill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let us come up with serious plans. Once these plans are started, we need not stop them even when there is change of guard. We should continue with them so that we can have our roads maintained properly. I am yet to be told what happened to the bypasses that were there; southern, northern and central bypasses in Nairobi. We also need to realize that any money that is collected through the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) or anything to do with the roads should be ploughed back to the maintenance of the roads. Let us not divert this money to any other department. Let us continue making and maintaining the roads because they are very important arteries of development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you will also note that when you are coming from abroad and you are lucky to land at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), for you to get to Nairobi City centre, it will take you three hours, whereas it would have taken you, maybe, three hours to come from London or from any other town. Moving from the JKIA to the Central Business District (CBD) will take you almost three hours on the road. So, this is something we need to look at very seriously. We need to come up with express roads which would link us to the JKIA or outside the JKIA, so that we do not lose a lot of revenue. Tourists do not even trust our security as they move from the JKIA. So, we need to have those roads, because they are there in many international capital cities. I do not see the reason why we should not come up with one to make sure that there is express transport of tourists and even passengers as they transit out of Nairobi through the JKIA. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are also these other things that we need to think about. If the parking in Nairobi is causing congestion, we can have alternative parking, the way I found in Ireland, where vehicles are parked, for example, in Jamhuri Park and people are allowed to use shuttles to get to town. If that can happen, we are going to have less vehicles and even less pollution in our city centre as compared to having many vehicles in our city. That, of course, requires planning. If that planning could be continued and well done, I am sure we are going to have very good transport and even communication policy of our own in our towns. I would, therefore, request the Minister who is really working very hard, to look into this matter and give it priority in his planning. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, lastly, I would like to talk about road clearance and our District Roads Engineers. I think there is something wrong with these people. Either it is the culture or the way they were taught in our universities. These people are seriously looting money which they are given. I have evidence where, the moment you give them Kshs11 million, they can only account for less than that money on road maintenance, gravelling et cetera . You cannot tell where the rest of the money has gone to. You will be told that much money has gone to bush clearing, gravelling, maintenance and culverting, whereas these things are not there. So, we need to have proper inspectors of our roads so that we are not in collision with some of those engineers. Some of them are very bad and they need, if not to be sacked, not to be engaged on our Kenyan roads. They are bad news! 1796 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 13, 2007 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also notice that to clear most of our roads, we need to see what is happening in Tanzania. If you were to travel from Arusha to Dar es Salaam by road, you will really admire their roads; they are very well maintained. The clearing on both sides is done very well, the roads are very clear and very neat and everything else is well done. I wish Kenyan roads could be like that. Let there be, maybe, a plan where neighbouring farmers are paid to clear roads in adjoining areas, instead of having to employ people who will be clearing the roads further from their homes. If this happens, I am sure that even the workers in our countryside will also benefit from the revenue. With those few remarks, I want to thank the Minister for bringing this Bill and beg to support."
}