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{
    "id": 224913,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/224913/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 287,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for an opportunity to contribute in support of this Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I just want to touch on a few points contained in these Supplementary Estimates. The first issue is that of infrastructure. Roads in this country remain in an unsatisfactory state. We need to see that money is allocated for road maintenance, while new roads are constructed. This will ensure that some of the roads that already exist are not let to go to waste to the extent that we will have to reconstruct them. Maintenance will save a lot of reconstruction money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for those of us who come from the west - I believe this includes Nyanza Province - the roads are quite bad. This is the case whether you are talking of road through Kericho to Kisumu or the highway through Timboroa Forest. The only good road that there was through Mr. Biwott's region, is also now getting rapidly dilapidated because of heavy traffic. This money can go a long way in repairing some of those roads. Indeed, I can see some Kshs600 million provided to the Ministry of Transport for railways. It is now over one year since we started hearing of a company called \"Rift Valley Railways\". This company is supposed to have won a tender to take over the running of the Kenya Railways. One of the ways of easing pressure on roads is to have a working railway network. Transportation of heavy goods and fuel, where the pipeline is unable to cope, should be done by railways. If these people, who run the Rift Valley Railways, are unable to actualise the contract that they got to run our railways, then we should reconsider it and get a new team. The Railway has always been transport facility that saves the roads from damage. We have always had problems with axle road weight, which destroys roads when we have an idle railway system. This is something we should look into. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on electricity, I would first want to congratulate the Ministry of Energy for the good work they are doing on rural electrification. Everywhere you go around the country, there is at least some work going on. I believe in the next Budget, we should April 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 867 give the Ministry more money. If we want the rural areas of this country to develop to the same level as the urban areas, it should be a policy that every secondary school is provided with electricity, as a minimum. In this way, the children who go to such schools will benefit from modern technology. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to join Mr. Angwenyi in what he said. At this day and age, 43 years after Independence, what are those white people doing at the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC)? We have enough local engineers, managers and accountants. These are people who have turned round local institutions. We can showcase Mumias Sugar Company and the Kenya Airways. Why would we, at this day and age, hire white people, foreigners whom I believe we are paying three to five times more than we pay local managers, to manage the KPLC?"
}