Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 45527,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/45527/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 314,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another clause that I would wish to ask my brother to look at is that one that deals with appeals. You know, and being a lawyer myself, when you have appeals from the board to the High Court, the law should provide that, once you go to the High Court, it is final. That way, you do not keep the process of work from that body to be endless litigation. Now, you will end up in the High Court. From there, you will go to the Court of Appeal. From there, somebody will raise a serious constitutional issue and rush to the Supreme Court and, in the process, you are paralyzing the operations of the industry. The same confusion, the same losses, the same frustrations and the same substandard works will continue despite the presence of the Board. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would want to see that once this Board is in place, the public must feel its presence. The public must feel its production. We must see, even without Members of Parliament asking questions here, the Board being able to order a Ministry or local authority not to pay a contractor because of sub-standard work done, to surcharge a contractor because of sub-standard work done, to black-list a contractor because of sub-standard work done, and not because Mr. David Were has come here to ask a question. Mr. David Were is not an agent provocateur for the Board. The Board must do its work. I hope and believe that whoever will be put on this Board will not have had just a job created for them; I hope the Board will truly help this country save public funds that we lose when shoddy work is done; it will have to deal with issues that have bedeviled the construction industry both in buildings and on roads. My final point is that I hope this Board will also work hand in hand with schools. One of the biggest problems we have in this country is sub-standard construction in schools. In western Kenya where we have so much rain and gales, each Member of Parliament here from that region has a story to tell about a whole school blown off by winds every other day. This is not because the winds are as heavy as what we see in Loiyangalani and other parts of Kenya, but because the work is simply sub-standard. We have the CDF money, LATF, KESEP and money for free primary education. Unless we have an authority that makes sure that whatever we are building stands the test of time, we will just continue building and rebuilding. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you go to Europe and you are told a building was built in 1460. You go to wherever and you are told a building is 400 years old. You come here and a ten-year old building looks like a ruin. This is simply because the construction was poor. Once the foundation is hopeless, the end result will be hopeless. I hope that this Authority will make a meaningful difference in the construction industry. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}