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"id": 224927,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Gumo",
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"legal_name": "Fredrick fidelis Omulo Gumo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you very much for giving me a chance to contribute on this Motion. I will begin by congratulating the Minister. Since he took over, he has done his best. He has tried. When you walk around the country, you can see that there is some tangible development going on. He has tried to put money everywhere and that is very good. The only thing that he has not done is that he has not included other people from other communities, so that he is not blamed for--- Today, even if you wanted a Phd Degree holder from Turkana, you can get him\\her. So, the Minister should try to get people from other communities to assist him at the Treasury. Otherwise, the Minister has done very well. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we only talk of trunk roads and highways, but roads in Nairobi are in a pathetic condition. I am sure most of you, since you got loans to buy houses in Nairobi and you now reside in Nairobi, must be having a lot of problems to get to your homes. It is long since money was allocated to the Nairobi City Council (NCC) or the Government took it upon itself to construct roads in Nairobi. The roads in Nairobi are so bad that sometimes, for us who are Members of Parliament for Nairobi, we are embarrassed and do not know what to do. Nairobi April 24, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 869 contributes nearly 60 per cent of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) in this country but what we get is less than 5 per cent. The Minister should, at least, look at it so that if he could give us only 20 per cent of the RMLF, I am sure the roads in Nairobi will improve a lot. Regarding water and sewerage, the population of Nairobi within the last ten or 15 years has tripled and the water and sewerage pipes have not been changed since then. Where one person used to live in one residential house, today we have 30 to 36 families living in that compound. One acre today is accommodating nearly about 40 to 48 families and the infrastructure has never been improved. The roads have never been built. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you go to Milimani, Riverside, Westlands, Kitisuru and Gigiri, there are many small rivers and small bridges which were constructed in the early 1960s and 1970s. Those are small bridges which do not even cost much. They would cost maybe Kshs5 million or Kshs10 million. But because of those bridges not having been constructed to accommodate traffic moving from Yaya Centre to Kileleshwa, you have to go either through James Gichuru Road or come back to town. That is what is causing traffic jam. So, if the Minister could allocate some money so that those roads could be done and bridges built, the traffic congestion in this city will not be there. There is congestion because there are no connecting bridges from one area to another. In Nairobi, every now and then, whenever there is little rain, there are floods. This is because the drainage system has blocked and the Nairobi City Council (NCC) does not have enough money. The Town Clerk of NCC has tried to do his best. If you look at Nairobi now, it has improved a lot because of him. He only needs a bit of political support. I give him that political support, but the Government needs to do the same, and Nairobi will be the way it used to be in the early 1950s. He is doing his best but he is lacking support. In this country unless you have political support, you cannot do much. He is trying his best. If the Minister can allocate him enough money, I am sure Nairobi will look much better than it is today. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was in Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) the other day. One of my constituents had a road accident and I went to visit him. Before, I had not realised that you have to pay a lot of money in KNH to be admitted. That particular person stayed in KNH for six hours because he did not have Kshs200 for registration. They could not even attend to him because he did not have Kshs200 in his pocket. Even after paying the amount, he had to pay another Kshs300, another Kshs3,000 and another Kshs8,000. In total, for him to be admitted, he had to pay about Kshs11,000 to be admitted in KNH. Here we are being told everyday that medical service in Government hospitals is free. How many people in this country can afford Kshs10,000 in order to be admitted in hospital? Something must be done. The amount of money they ask for, no ordinary person can afford. If we really want to give people free medical services, then it must be free or they should be made to pay only a minimum. But to pay Kshs12,000 or Kshs15,000 in order to be admitted and yet you are in pain, and no doctor is ready to attend to you until that money is paid, is unfair. I wish the Minister for Health was here. For me as a Member of Parliament, everyday, when I wake up the amount of money that I give my constituents for payment of medical bills is enormous. It has to be reduced, otherwise, people will keep on dying. They cannot afford it! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, supply of electricity in Nairobi estates is not sufficient, particularly in the slums. You must have heard about fires in the slums every now and then, either in Kangemi, Kibera or Mathare. But the fire-fighting vehicles cannot reach there. We need to open up roads in these slums because slums are there to stay and there is nothing we can do about it. The majority of people in this city cannot afford permanent housing. The income is so low that the average income per person in this town is about Kshs4,000 a month and yet, the rent for one roomed permanent house is about Kshs5,000 to Kshs6,000. 870 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 24, 2007 Majority of those people cannot afford to pay that rent. They have to stay in the slums. So, we need to put up some facilities in the slums. We should make sure that essential services like roads, water and health facilities are there. The people living in those slums are human beings. They are the ones who make this economy boom. Without the labour that we get from those slums, there is no way a country can grow. We need to improve their facilities. So far, what they earn is not enough to make them live a comfortable life. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I congratulated the Minister and I am sure that, if we gave him support, he can do a lot more. He is a young man and he wants to prove a point. Let us put politics aside. If somebody is doing a good job, let us support him or her. If we support some of the Ministers who are doing a good job, I am sure we will get very far. Let us not just criticise for the sake of doing so. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}