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{
    "id": 45555,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/45555/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 342,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Obure",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Public Works",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 118,
        "legal_name": "Christopher Mogere Obure",
        "slug": "christopher-obure"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in particular, I want to pay special recognition to the contributions made by certain Members like hon. Franklin Bett who seconded this Bill. Of course, he is one of the sponsors of this Bill and I thank him for the remarks he made while supporting this Bill. I want to thank the hon. Attorney-General who has shown tremendous interest in this Bill by supporting it. I also want to thank hon. Muriithi of Laikipia West, hon. Baiya and hon. Eng. Gumbo. They have contributed to this Bill with a lot of passion this afternoon and, of course, the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister, hon. Raila Odinga. He made very useful contribution. You recall that he took us down the memory lane, having been a Minister for Roads and Public Works. He gave us some insight which will be very useful. I also want to thank the hon. Member for Turkana Central, who happens to be in the Chair right now. Your contribution was very useful. I want to recognize the contribution of my own colleague, hon. Mwangi Kiunjuri. I want to appreciate the contribution of our lawyer and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, hon. Wetangula. Again, a lot of insight has been given by that particular contributor. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the chairman of the Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing, Mr. David Were, was one of the last contributors to this Bill. I thank him for the support he has given. Mr. Oyongo Nyamweya, Dr. Nuh of Bura, Mr. Njuguna, Mr. Affey and Mr. Otichilo, I value the contributions you have made. I also thank all those who have indicated their support for this Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to assure hon. Members that we take their views seriously. We take their concerns seriously. We will work with them at the Committee Stage to improve on this Bill, to strengthen it and make sure that it serves the purpose for which it has been brought to this House for enactment. From the sentiments expressed, it is very clear that this Bill is long overdue. It should have been here much earlier, because Kenyans feel that they have been held captive for far too long by contractors, consultants, professionals and Ministry officials. The general feeling is that it should have been brought here earlier to give us relief. Nevertheless, I am particularly very grateful that the implementation of the reforms envisaged in the construction industry will now have a legal and institutional framework. This is very important and very critical for this country. The Bill, when enacted into law, will bring order and discipline. It will enhance professionalism in the entire construction industry. It is important that these issues are underscored, because we have had serious challenges in this particular industry since we did not have this legal basis and an institution in place. Now that we are on the way towards creating this legal basis, and the Authority that will look after the industry’s affairs, it is a very good day for this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the focus in the whole Bill was to create a centralized system of registration of contractors, and the fact that we are on the way towards supporting the creation of that centralized system of registration of contractors is a good signal; it will in itself instill discipline. It will in itself bring order, so that all the cowboy contractors and the briefcase contractors will be phased out once this system is in place. All the contractors doing shoddy work in one Ministry and running away to do work in another Ministry, even when they have not been able to abide by their obligations and undertakings in the previous jobs, will be phased out. The second focus was in respect to offering a structured training programme in the construction industry. In this country, we need a large pool of professionals, skilled workers and workers who can implement construction projects. In the absence of these workers, implementing projects becomes very difficult. You will appreciate that at the present stage, we have a situation where we have fairly highly trained people up to the university level and so on. For a period of time, we forgot to train people at certain middle level training institutions. We focused at the higher level when the actual work is done by skilled workers, who are normally trained at the youth polytechnics and middle level colleges. The intention of this Bill is to ensure that we put in place structured training programmes to ensure that this country has a pool of workers who can undertake these jobs and ensure that we have quality buildings, roads and many other things that will form the foundation of the future development of our economy. The third main focus of this Bill is to carry out research on construction processes and on the use of construction materials that are locally available in certain areas of our country, approve them and standardize them for construction purposes. The sole purpose of this is to ensure that we make construction affordable so that people will built their own houses using local materials and build quality houses which can be afforded by the ordinary Kenyans. This is what we intend to achieve through the enactment of this Bill which will become law. This is the main focus of this law; to ensure that we have a centralized registration process and training programmes in place and carry out research with a view to ensuring that we standardize construction process and the use of raw materials in particular. With the passage of this Bill into law, we will announce that it is time to change our attitudes. Those of us in the Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Roads and those who are in any infrastructural Ministry in this country must change their attitudes. We must begin to conform to the requirements of the new law and the expectations of this country so that together, we can work in the spirit of this new Bill in enhancing professionalism. We should stop collusion between consultants and contractors and any other persons involved so that we can build a strong and vibrant construction industry in this country. With those few remarks, I beg to move."
}