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{
    "id": 447586,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/447586/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "The county governments are in the best position to decide what they need and what they do not. I will give you an example; I went to Sen. Mositet’s county in Kitengela, which is by-passed by a major highway all the way to Namanga. Immediately you branch from the highway and go into the town, there is no road. In fact, I got stuck in the mud. It is a shame that you have just come from a superhighway and two metres away you are stuck in a pool of water inside the town. There is very little the town administration can do about it because they do not have funds to do anything. They do not have the money to fix the problem yet they can see that Kitengela is growing quickly into a huge market which requires the infrastructure to be developed accordingly. The investment which is now happening in Kitengela area is sometimes higher than the investment happening in Kiambu. Everybody is moving to that direction, building beautiful homes, hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. However, there is no money to develop infrastructure. The people who are supposed to do it are called KURA whose definition of urban leaves out towns like Kitengela and Athi River. If you see the roads in Athi River, you will be shocked. When you move from the Mombasa Highway and join the road going to Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), it is in a terrible state. Sometimes there is no money to fix them and yet that is what brings money to grow the town. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I have already heard of a suggestion that in addition to the fuel levy which replaced the toll stations that were there previously, we are bringing back the toll stations. For example, Thika Highway is going to have a toll station and some other two or three highways. I do not know where that money will be going because originally we intended to remove this toll station because accountability is a problem and causing unnecessary delay, but we are now going back. Sometimes, I think our policies are not very consistent with the aspirations of the Kenyan people. The people of Kenya want their money to be given to the county governments to manage the roads and also give money to the national Government what is at the national level. Some operatives at the Ministry of Transport do not want this to go because it is huge money and they want to control it. They want to know who the contractor is and so on. If this House wants to help Kenya, therefore, it should not go backwards and expand KURA which we want to dissolve. It should actually insist that KURA now be dissolved. We should also pass another Motion to say that this money should be divided in this manner between the national Government and county government. In the meantime, because we have accepted that we do not have power on some of these things, and I do not know why we are accepting it, we can ask KURA to expand its network to include towns and markets. All of us should be able to go to KURA and ask for services. With those very many remarks, I support."
}