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"id": 242178,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/242178/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
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"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
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"content": " If it is provided for, then that is okay. I had not seen it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, another road that is so critical to the economy of this country is the Kitale-Lodwar-Lokichoggio Road, for the opening up of our links to Southern Sudan. This is a road that even if the Government was to concession it, let it be, so that we can open up that area and benefit from the peace dividends that we have painstakingly undertaken to bring to Southern Sudan. Equally, I would want to see a speedy implementation of the rehabilitation of the highway from Mombasa to Malaba and Busia because this is the lifeline of our economy. I know that there is the Mai Mahiu-Lanet Road project going on. One would want to see and know when the Lanet- Mau Summit, Mau Summit-Malaba and Mau Summit-Kisumu road connections are going to be done, so that we can ease the movement of traffic and goods from Mombasa to Uganda. Mr. Speaker, Sir, one would equally want to see the much talked about dualization of the highway from Mombasa to the Uganda border to make it easy for goods to move. Today, it takes three to four days for trailers to move from Mombasa to Malaba or Busia, a distance that could take a trailer one day to cover if the road was good. As a representative of my constituency, I also want to mention that I am not quite happy with the manner of allocation of the funds. This House, more than ever before, requires a Budget Office. We need a Budget Committee that will ensure equity, fairness and a national outlook in our allocation of resources. It is, certainly, disheartening for me from Western Province to look at the Financial Estimates and see that what are called national and provincial projects have been allocated to every province except Western Province. Not even one! Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at pages 35 and 36 with regard to the National/Provincial Projects, you will see that the resources have been allocated as follows: Nairobi Province bypasses, Kshs30 million; Central Province, Kshs830 million; Coast Province, Kshs1,367,000,000; Eastern Province, Kshs1,431,000,000; Nyanza Province, Kshs554 million, and Rift Valley Province, Kshs4,644,000,000. I understand the figure for the Rift Valley Province because of the ongoing Mai Mahiu-Lanet Road project. However, there is not a single provision for National/Provincial Roads for Western Province. The province has been totally left out. This is unacceptable because the people of Western Province also pay taxes and need to be looked at. Mr. Speaker, Sir, even the funds that have been allocated for tarmacking roads in that region, which include one road in Bungoma, the road from Kakamega to Bungoma; one road from Kamkuywa around Mount Elgon; the Khwisero-Yala Road, so on and so forth, cannot do even 10 kilometres. This is not right. I hope that in future budgets, the Ministry will re-consider these roads. If you start tarmacking a 40 kilometre road, why should you allocate it Kshs100 million? We were told last week that it costs Kshs60 million to tarmac one kilometre of road. What kind of tarmac are we going to do? This is not right and I would want to register my sentiments. Further, we as constituencies have enormous problems from implementation of our projects by officers from the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. Every engineer in the district is either moulding culverts or in cahoots with some crooked contractors, and the road projects just do not go on. In my constituency, I put at the disposal of the District Roads Office, my District Committee Roads (DRC) funds, but roads are not being done. Every time you ask, you are told there is no grader. If you want bridges constructed, you have to go to the Provincial Works Officer. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to urge the Minister to decentralise some of these departments to 2216 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 19, 2006 districts, so that every district has a department dealing with bridges, so that when, under CDF or any other fund, we want a bridge to be done, we do not have to go to the Provincial Works office. You can imagine a Member of Parliament from Loitokitok going to Rift Valley Provincial Works Office in Nakuru to look for an engineer to do a bridge. You can imagine an hon. Member from Kibwezi going all the way to Embu to look for an engineer to do a bridge. These are things that can be done quite easily. The Ministry should post bridge engineers to every district and, eventually, to all divisions, so that we can function and utilise available funds efficiently. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also want to say something that the Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs mentioned yesterday. We have roads in this country that are allocated between Kshs100 million and Kshs200 million annually for murraming and grading. I have examples in Bungoma District. There are cartels of contractors who, when a road is allocated money for murraming, all they do is to bring a grader to run all over the road and the money is taken away. This, again, has to change. For us to reduce the rate of corruption, we must check every sector of our Government. No economy can grow in the absence of proper infrastructure. We were told, previously, that this country needs about Kshs120 billion to put all our roads in a good state. The request in this year's Budget is close to Kshs45 billion. One would want to believe that by the next financial year's Budget, more than 90 per cent of the roads in this country will have been done so that we can benefit from good infrastructure in the country. Finally, I want to urge the Minister that when he brings his supplementary Budget later in the year, he corrects the imbalances that are glaring in this year's Budget, so as to have equity. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}