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{
    "id": 555098,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/555098/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 142,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Baiya",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 8,
        "legal_name": "Peter Njoroge Baiya",
        "slug": "peter-baiya"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to also contribute to this important Motion. I also rise to support the Departmental Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing with regard to its recommendation to approve the Protocol on SGR. Some doubts have been raised quite a number of times about the wisdom or viability of the country committing itself to that kind of protocol. That is because the country is committing substantial investment resources into construction of a railway. To such doubts, we only need to ask the critics to look at the rest of the world, including Europe, USA and Asia. It is only Africa where, as regions, we are not integrated in terms of transport and communication. That means that amongst our regions, that is where trade and commerce is at its lowest and most expensive. So, the country is moving in the right direction by laying the framework for integrating the region. Even our own experience and history disapprove of what the critics of those projects are saying. By the time the Kenyan Railway was done from 1901 to 1906, the country at that time hardly had anything that would have justified the construction of the railway in terms of economic activity. That is one of the main reasons why the Kenyan Railway was nicknamed “Lunatic Express”. The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) which was undertaking that project through the colonial office did not have the benefit of a viability analysis of the project. They just decided that if they were going to make the colony work, they would have a railway. After finishing the railway, they started working backwards to establish projects that would make the railway viable or make it pay itself. That is how we found, for instance, the settlement of settlers in the whole corridor of the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}