HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 303778,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/303778/?format=api",
"text_counter": 340,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "appreciated and increased more by private sector players, who have the ability to move fast and ensuring efficiency and effectiveness without bureaucracy. The Bill is very clear in that it has finally set up procedures and guidelines. I sit in the Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade. I remember that we went through a very rigorous workshop in Mombasa with all stakeholders. We discussed this policy in great detail. I can confirm that the stakeholders and our Committee have been involved. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, had we enacted this Bill much earlier, we would not have had the tragedies we have had with the Rift Valley Railways, the Ken- Ren fertilizer plant, and many other ghost projects. These projects were, probably, initiated with very good intentions, but which ended up in the hands of those who mismanaged them. This Bill will now provide for strict guidelines and procedures that must be followed. There will be a lot of transparency when projects of such magnitude are started. The Bill envisages two types of proposals, namely, those which may be solicited by the National Government or County Governments and investment proposals which may be privately initiated such as the ICC City in Kwanza, the coal mining proposal in Kitui and others. We have also the Trans Mara Conservancy initiative which has instilled sense into our management of wildlife. We have seen this happening in Doha, Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there are many of us who take 45 minutes to fly from Kisumu to Nairobi, but it takes us two hours to travel from the airport to the City centre. One of the programmes we are hoping to promote is a light railway or a monorail. I was in Malaysia, where I saw this service. I went and saw the operators and the persons who built the monorail. They logged into the Internet, retrieved the map of Kenya and said: “We can build a line from where the duel carriageway starts on Waiyaki Way, all the way to the airport. It will cost you about US$10 million per kilometre.” During that time, they were very much willing to finance the project, build, operate and transfer. As the Minister said, there are other options. Another option is build, transfer and operate, which is a very good option. I used to sit on the Board of the New Nyanza Provincial General Hospital. We had Victoria Hospital, which was at that time run by the colonialists. It was a “whites only” hospital. We have since developed it. If the Ministry of Health had come up with proposals of private public partnership, we would very easily have privatised it. We could then have used that money to cater for patients in the public hospital who could not afford to pay for services offered in private hospitals. Unfortunately, because procedures were not there, this could not be facilitated. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said, the policies and procedures contained in this Bill start from the invitation of the bid through to technical evaluation, negotiations, project assessment, Cabinet approval, execution and establishment. It also assesses, evaluates and continues to control the development of a particular project. As I said, this is something which needs to be put together, and which needs to be done very quickly. A development must be economically viable and must have efficiency. I want to say at this stage that had we had such a law in place to refer to, the De La Rue scam would not have gone as far as it has gone. We would have seen it or knocked it out much earlier. With those few remarks, I beg to second."
}