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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity. I stand here to support this Motion by my good friend, the Minister for Local Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me start on a happy note and congratulate the Nairobi City Council because having lived in this city for many years, recently, I have began to see some improvements in certain areas with regard to cleanliness of the city and, particularly, street lighting. I think that when a good job is done, we owe it to those who do it to say: \"Thank you\". I think they have done a good job. Having said that, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think we all agree that the recently concluded mayoral elections in Nairobi brought shame to this country. As the previous speaker has just said, Nairobi is the capital city of this country and what happened through those elections clearly showed us that there is a lot of rot in the Nairobi City Council. My biggest disappointment is that my very good friend, the Minister for Local Government, approved those elections. If I were him, I would have cancelled those elections immediately, ordered a repeat of the elections and ensured that the elections were conducted properly and democratically. So, I think that the Minister erred here grossly in approving an election that we all saw clearly was full of violence. This has never happened anywhere else before. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, local authorities are responsible for providing services to local residents. I have already given credit to the ongoing street lighting programme that is being witnessed in Nairobi. However, a lot remains to be done. There is traffic congestion in Nairobi. There appears to be no proper management of traffic flow in the City of Nairobi. The traffic lights that we have today were installed during the time when Her Worship the Mayor, Margaret Kenyatta, was the mayor of Nairobi. There has been no increase of street lights in this City over the years. Most of the street lights do not function. One wonders, because the Nairobi City Council has an Electrical Engineer. What does he do? If he cannot repair a street light, what is he there for? What I am emphasising is that the Nairobi City Council must provide services to the people. We must have more street lights. If you even go to small cities in Africa, you will find many street lights. The congestion being witnessed in most parts of Nairobi is due to either malfunctioning street lights or none at all. So, I hope that even as the Minister prepares to host dignitaries from other cities in Nairobi, there are certain things that he must put right. It is not just street lights, but he must put right the traffic flow which is such a big problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of waste disposal has been alluded to by the previous speaker. There is a lot of illegal dumping of waste all over. These are matters that we must correct. The Nairobi City Council appears to only concentrate in cleaning certain areas. That is, the area between Parliament Road up to Moi Avenue. If you go beyond Moi Avenue, you will wonder whether you are in the City of Nairobi. May I suggest to the Minister that he immediately considers privatising garbage collection services because there is no way the people we see along August 1, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2485 the road, pretending to be collecting garbage, will manage to clean this city. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, an issue that is in the minds of those of us who represent the people is the harassment of petty traders, commonly known as hawkers in the City of Nairobi. Recently, we witnessed violence in the streets of Nairobi, perpetrated by City Council"
}