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"speaker_name": "Mr. Maore",
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"legal_name": "Richard Maoka Maore",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are saying that the idea of hiring out equipment is excellent. The reason for saying this is because when we used to ask for equipment from the District Works Officer, for very strange reasons, the equipment was not available: There is a chain of contractors who wanted to be allocated jobs within the district and they had to get the jobs because they were friends of influence peddlers at the district. It was not possible to acquire or access that equipment. I can assure you that in my constituency we have not been able to get any of that equipment even for one or two days in the last two years. Every time we asked for it, we were told that they were doing other things, yet we knew that the equipment was very idle. The District Engineers were keen to give contracts to the scheduled list of contractors. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that the issue of the CDF and the enhancement and transfer of the money from the districts to the CDF is going to come later in the Miscellaneous Amendment Bill. I do not want to anticipate debate. We will support it when it comes. The other issue I wanted to raise is the issue of classification of roads. The Minister proposed to have the National Highways Authority, the Kenya Rural Roads Authority and the Kenya Urban Roads Authority. I think this needed to be preceded by a comprehensive measure of classifying our roads. If he forms the National Highways Authority first, followed by the Rural Roads Authority, then the Kenya Urban Roads Authority and then go on to classify our roads, we are going to have a problem. We wish that the Ministry would first of all re-classify our roads. You will find that the roads which were classified as Class \"C\" roads 15 or 20 years ago have today acquired the volume of traffic that would qualify them to be classified as Class \"B\" type of roads. Also the ones which were classified as Class \"D\" or \"E\" also need to be upgraded. So, we seek some urgent and clear timeframe when the Ministry can do classification of roads. We are living with a 36 year-old system of classification at the Ministry, and we believe that classification is outdated. The other issue I need to raise is that of consultants. You will find many of the roads which have been put forward in the Vote which the Minister has moved today will not have taken off by June, 2007. Because of the procurement rules which have been put in place regulating the time that you have to advertise the tenders, shortlist the bidders, pre-qualify the tenders and then award the contract for design, not for the construction of the road, it is going to take the next six months. By the time you sit down and decide on the priorities of the roads and the designs you have received, you will find that by next year, the road you are allocating money today would not have been done. So, we need a policy decision to be taken so that if the Ministry does not have the capacity to do an in-house design for the roads and they have to out-source, we need a quicker mechanism to be put in place so that they can be able to have the roads on the ground instead of having them in our books and yet they are not going to take off within the specified time. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, while still talking about the consultants regarding the design works that are being sought, either for buildings or roads, there is a problem of duplication whereby the design works are done by the Ministry officials and then they are later awarded to outsiders. We want some harmony because the money being used in paying those contractors is colossal. So, we do not want people to use the staff of Ministries and then make money out of it whereby private consultants are awarded the job, they do some little work here and there, while most of the work is done by Ministry officials, yet they are paid for the skills of the civil servants and the consultants are making a fortune. So, we need some harmony and attention to be brought back to the Ministry. The Minister has also mentioned that we need to note and amplify the issue of the Road Maintenance Levy. He said that he is going to put in place some periodic maintenance. The problem with our road network today has been lack of any time or attention put forward for maintenance. 2136 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 18, 2006 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I remember that when the Meru-Nkubu Road was opened in 1984, it was one of the best roads then. Today, when we travel home, we have to use the Nanyuki route because the Meru-Nkubu Road is undergoing a complete overhaul because somebody sat and waited until it became completely unmotorable. So, the issue of periodic maintenance of our roads must be put in place if we intend to have a resemblance of a road network in our country. It is not possible to have motorable roads, no matter what material we use, if we do not maintain them all. When I was opening my remarks about the balance, I noticed the Isiolo-Merile-Moyale Road having been earmarked for donor-funding under the EDF and the ADB. We have two donors doing a joint project. We want to ask the Government to ensure that the disharmony in its relationship with the donors does not affect budgeted projects. You will find that any time the donors feel that the Government is not behaving right, they move with speed to suspend such funding and yet we have already committed ourselves through the Budget to do roads. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have also noted that donors have agreed to provide Kshs6.2 billion for roads in the northern corridor. In addition, you will find a long schedule of the roads that the Minister has already mentioned. These include the Maji ya Chumvi Road at the Coast Province, which has been allocated Kshs1.2 billion. The others are the Wote-Makindu and Isiolo-Merile roads. I have noted that many of the roads that were earmarked for reconstruction last year also appear in this year's budget. This means that apart from the design work, nothing else has happened on the ground. So, we would wish to have periodic reports about the progress of the projects that the Government has undertaken, so that we can keep up with what is going on rather than just wait endlessly when nothing is happening on the ground. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue we need to raise is that of supervision of public-funded projects not under the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. If we take, for instance, the renovations going on within Parliament Buildings or any other public institution, the issue of supervision of such works by the Ministry of Roads and Public Works is crucial. It is the only way we can monitor and maintain the quality of the service that the public is paying for. It should not be taken at the discretion of the officials, where they can either go slow, delay the project or abstain. There should be clear guidance, that if the Ministry of Roads and Public Works has undertaken to supervise a project, it is not a privilege or a favour but the public's right. When we have a completion certificate, we should be satisfied that a project has been implemented to the standard that was required in the contract. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the issue of collusion between the District Development Committees (DDCs), the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Roads and Public Works. There are cases where committee members of a DDC tour a very good road and one morning decide to erect a bump across it. This random erection of bumps across our roads has been a disaster in very many instances. Sometime last month, while driving to Naivasha, one of our colleagues met a bump suddenly. His car rolled five times. Thank God, he was unharmed. The Ministry of Roads and Public Works should strictly state that the bumps it has been erecting on our roads without notice, which are neither even, nor standardised, are quite a mess on our road network. Since these bumps are a mess on our road network, the Ministry should put in place signs and signals as the only means of controlling vehicular traffic on our roads. That is the international highway code. It is not the discretion of the Ministry to wake up one morning and erect bumps on a road that did not have a bump the previous day. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that members of the public always make noise that they want bumps erected because people are being killed by speeding cars, whereas we know that cars do not go to shambas looking for people to crash. It is the people who carelessly July 18, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2137 cross roads. People need to be taught through civic education that before you cross a road, you need to look right, left and right again, and then only cross the road if you are sure that there is no oncoming vehicle. That is the only way to maintain the dignity of something we call a road. It is a civilised gadget. It is not meant for us to go through some stone age thinking to save our lives. We need people to make sure that they observe safety rules when they cross roads. We also need the police to monitor and control vehicular traffic and speed. We should not use road bumps. Kenya is the only country in the world that uses bumps on classified highways and Class \"B\" roads as a means of controlling traffic. There is no other country in the world which does it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, those who design vehicles and roads never intended them to be used by barbarians. They are meant to be used by people who know how to use them. A small saloon car is not meant to climb a three-feet bump, on which the vehicle goes and hangs on the other side. The Ministry of Roads and Public Works should come out clear and state that there will be no bumps on roads. If you want to control traffic or alert motorists that they are approaching a market centre or a school, the Ministry should put road signs. That is what happens in places where roads are. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue I would like to raise is the cost of the Vice-President's official residence. In the Budget of 2003/2004, Kshs50 million was allocated for this project. We understand that in the following year, only the designs were ready. In this year's Budget, we have been told that Kshs82 million has been provided for the same project. We would like to plead with the Minister for Roads and Public Works to state the actual cost of this project when he replies to this debate. If there is no exact figure, we may have a bottomless \"hole\", which would be messed up by variation of the contract sum year in, year out. As you are aware, the chain of corruption is still intact. Although the incumbent regime prides that they are a new Government and, therefore, they do not have problems of corruption, you will be shocked to learn that it is only the \"monkeys\" that have changed; the \"forest\" is still the same. The contractors and public servants who colluded to fleece public funds in the previous regime are the same ones handling contracts today. So, we do not want to hear the story that everything is okay when we know that it is not okay. On the issue that we have addressed, I stated that we have had a smooth spread of the public vote. It is good---"
}