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{
    "id": 768078,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768078/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 274,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Peters Martin Owino",
    "speaker_title": "The Member for Ndhiwa",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13449,
        "legal_name": "Martin Peters Owino",
        "slug": "martin-peters-owino"
    },
    "content": "Ndhiwa is a very nice constituency. I welcome all of you to visit us at one time or the other. As for the Motion, I rise to oppose it. Life is important whether it is in the urban area or the rural area. When we talk of additional service lanes, in Ndhiwa, I am losing mothers. We are experiencing maternal and neonatal deaths at the highest rate ever. What would be done to help our traffic and deal with road carnage should be a very well thought out multifaceted agenda. You cannot fix traffic jam in Nairobi or any other urban area by supplying hardware. What we have is the problem of behaviour. When an ambulance is signalling to pass and motorists just stay on the steering, not even moved that there is an emergency, then there is a problem. This a good Motion, but it is not going to address the problem we have. We have to fix our behavioural problem first and also enforce traffic laws and then we can talk of additional lanes and service lanes. I had an opportunity to live in the west. Once they hear the signal, everybody pulls aside because they understand what emergency is. It does not matter how many lanes you are going to add to this. With the kind of prevailing behaviour, they will still jam the road. This Motion, when it becomes a Bill, will have costs to go with. There is a Member who said that when it comes to the Bill, with the cost that it carries, even the rural roads will suffer. Let us face it. We do not have much money. At the moment, there are constructions going on in urban areas. If those are the roads that will be used as emergency service lanes, so be it. However, if we are talking of having additional roads, there is no money. Let us address the issues of traffic jams and road carnage through a multi-sectoral approach so that we can have a multifaceted way of dealing with these issues. I oppose. Allow me to also say a few words about what is going on in our country. It is something that both parties should stand up and condemn instead of telling our leaders only what they want to hear. That will not help us. Yesterday, we had a peaceful meeting towards Jacaranda. All of a sudden, a truckload of police officers came with teargas and bullets. It is in our Constitution that no one should take the law into their own hands. The comments that we heard when they were breaking that crowd, you cannot believe it. They were quite tribal and for what reason? It was not just that kid who was killed. About five people were shot dead yesterday. For what? It appears to us that these people are not policemen. Police officers are trained to follow the law. The people who stopped our prayers yesterday were thugs in police uniform. Something has to be done immediately. We are not going to lose lives for the sake of self-accomplishment. We are tying these laws to traffic laws. If people cannot follow the law, then what we are trying to do is meaningless. I would also like to say that there are no roads in Ndhiwa. We have ambulances, but they cannot take people who are sick from their homes to the dispensaries. I will not support what adds on to what people have in urban areas. When the colonial government left, they were staying and developing urban areas. They forgot the rural areas. So, when we took over, are we going to follow the same thing? Let us focus on roads so that our facilities like health centres and schools are connected because there are human beings living there. When there are emergencies, they would like to get to where they can be helped. Hon. Melly, with all due respect, this is a good Motion, but it lacks what we should take to overcome the problems we are facing. I would therefore like to appeal to you to review and consider all sectors and strategies so that we can come up with a new Motion. I oppose this Motion. Thank you, Hon. Speaker."
}