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{
    "id": 583623,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/583623/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 267,
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    "content": "go to Mombasa and land at the airport, it will take you about three hours again to drive your way to north coast, some of those facilities that we normally use for our conferences. Eldoret was still quite a free town the other day. However, if you go there now, Uganda Road is impassable. It will take you almost one and a half hours from Eldoret airport to cross over the town to find your way to Maili Sita, if you are going to Kitale. This is not just a problem of Nairobi alone. It is a problem that is now affecting our major towns. When you decide to go by road from Nairobi to Eldoret, if you get to Nakuru, it will take you another almost one and a half hour just to cross over. You do not need to go through Nakuru Town because you have no business there. However, it will take you almost one and a half hours because you are forced to go through Nakuru town. If we had bypasses, then you would bypass Nakuru Town because you are on transit to Eldoret. Why do you have to force people from Mombasa who have no business in Nairobi to go through the CBD? Why do you have to find the huge tankers in town? We, therefore, have to engage as a country and make bold decisions. We know that the late Hon. John Michuki attempted to address the menace in the matatu industry. He succeeded because he was a bold man and he took the bull by its horns and decided that we needed to address the matatu industry and deal with those issues. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we now need another courageous leader to tell us that we cannot succeed to eliminate congestion in this town if we are going to allow the 10 and 14 seater matatus within the CBD. If you go anywhere else in the world, you will never find a 14 seater matatu being used for public transport within the CBD. People have gone into trams and vehicles for mass transport where they have double decker buses. However, in this country, when you go to Uhuru Highway right now, you will find very many 14 seater matatus. You will also find private vehicles with only one person. I am driving on the road alone in the car, same to my wife and child. Why do we have to waste that amount of resources in this country? It is time for us to think of pooling together to ensure that we reduce the number of vehicles on our roads. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is the courage that we need to sort out this mess within our country. I thank the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. They have tried, but some of these bypasses are still just within the CBD. If you have a bypass off Mombasa Road through Ole Sereni and you are going all the way to Langata Road; that is still within the CBD. Why do we not have bypasses that are real bypasses, way out of town? If you look at the eastern and southern bypasses, a lot of the roads are still within the CBD. We, therefore, need to ask ourselves where the problem is. Why should we invest a lot of billions in a bypass that turns out to be just one other street within the CBD? If we needed a bypass, we need to be talking about a bypass off Mombasa Road, maybe from Athi River crossing over and joining the Main Highway at past Limuru so that we can then be able to eliminate the heavy trucks within the CBD. I support this Motion, but say that we need to have a comprehensive research so that we do not engage in trial and error. Let us have a research that gives us the right things to do as a county, but we also need a leadership that has the necessary courage to take the bold decisions. If we have to eliminate the 14 seater matatus, let us do it. If we have to increase the parking charges within the CDB, perhaps charge Kshs1,000 per The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}