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"id": 218682,
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"speaker_name": "Capt. Nakitare",
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"legal_name": "Davis Wafula Nakitare",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. This Bill is very important, particularly to our country. I have watched our road transportation in this country and I ask myself: Are we growing or we are stagnating? It is a pity that from 1963, we are still depending on the colonial road design. I will quickly move to where we went wrong while the Minister is still here. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to see a vein of roads in our country. For example, roads leading to Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakuru, Malaba and Busia are supposed to be three- way with four lanes on each side. We need turnpikes and interstate roads introduced in this country. It is not a question of talking about constructors. So, the question comes back to us. The design of the roads against the population growth of the country which is equal to the trade economy. The design of the roads here in this country is pathetic. The number of trailers from Mombasa to Busia, Malaba or to Lokichoggio on these roads poses a deadly drive for both private and commercial vehicles. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we talk about traffic accidents on our roads. Where did we go wrong? The road network which is actually supposed to be a trunk road, the highway, so to speak, is congested to the extent that drivers who are doing intercontinental trade suffer. Imagine a driver of a 40 feet tailer from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) going to Mombasa spends a month-and-a-half on Kenyan roads. The fuel consumption in our country is the biggest \"chewer\" of our economy. The congestion of the roads is not economical to this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works is in charge of the road network and design, which means that they are responsible for putting up road signs. A policeman is not a speed governor! The barriers on the road are not speed governors. Some of them are not even visible at night. Therefore, if we have good roads with road signs designed according to the Traffic Act--- A driver is trained on how to obey the road signs and move with the flow of June 12, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1731 traffic. However, when he goes to the Kenyan roads, there are no signs at all. That is why Mr. Maore was talking about a dual-carriage and a single lane. The matatu drivers do not care about over-taking and over-speeding on concealed corners hence causing deaths on the roads. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the bypass that we have been told about is a very simple issue. The Government could not even have spent money to relocate farmers for the bypasses. It was a question of constructing flyovers. If we established the road authorities and multiplied the roads to get whatever number we wanted, categorise them, create autonomy on road construction and maintenance of our roads, we will not achieve much. We should get rid of the roundabouts. Why do we not put up fly-overs? I have lived in San Francisco City where the town was built many years ago in 1776. It is a big city with 128 million people and you will find a road passing over - in fact, a bridge - a building like Parliament and going towards Thika. They do not disturb anybody there. So, if we can have this proper design in a modern way, we would be saving a lot of money. The bureaucracy of creating authorities would not have been there. The only thing that we would, probably, look at is the turnpikes. We need to probably privatise or have an inter- marriage between the Government and the private sector by creating a relationship in terms of road maintenance. In that case, when we allocate money, we pass funds here for the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. The Ministry is now going to be in three segments. We now have to share! However, the financial monitor should not be the financial constructor. He should be a financial monitor to see how that money is being spent. Therefore, when you look at road construction, we are branding this country as a cosmetic area. There is nothing difficult in creating four lanes between Mombasa, Malaba and Lokichoggio. There is no reason why we should have congestion in the city when we can create space. We can build high up in the air instead of expanding because of interfering with land owners. When you look at what Mr. Raila was talking about, where did we go wrong? It takes about 48 months to get approval before a grader is put on the road. Time and tide wait for no man! I think this is a place where we have mischievously been denied the right to know why we have delays in road construction. We cannot blame the people who come from outside the country with their own equipment. We applaud the French company which is constructing the road between Maai Mahiu and Nakuru. The road is funded by the European Union (EU). I look at it and ask: \"Why does the road have to cost so much and yet a lot of materials are locally available here?' All we get is bitumen which is manufactured here. Sand is available here and ballast is in the country. We have rocks. Why do we talk about it? We have nothing to import! Very little material is imported for road construction and maintenance. Roads engineers should not hide under the table by telling us that this is expensive. This is a recyclable material that should be used. The Ministry should also tell us how much material is locally available, obtained and utilised. They should also tell us how much material is imported into the country for the construction of a road which makes it Kshs90 million per kilometre. Those are some of the issues that we have to look into. So, we have to broaden our minds. I thank the Minister for having brought this Bill here. It is a subject of discussion and we are talking because of the past failures. However, I do not think we have failed totally. My concerns are that we are losing a lot in terms of the economy. The movement of cargo on the highway is at a snail-speed. We are talking about the roads. We are talking about millions of shillings which is being spent on maintenance of those roads. However, we have not even talked about the railway line which was built in 1890 and passed Nairobi and went to Kisumu in 1901. How many times have you seen it under construction? How many people can tell us that there has been procurement to replace the steel rails between Sultan Hamud and Mtito Andei? Why do we not use that railway line? In fact, Kenya should have turned its tables and said: \"Let us electrify our railway line so that we have passenger trains that go at a speed---\""
}