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{
    "id": 768708,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768708/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 193,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "congesting Eldoret town, we can create another town in a place called Chepsikot in Elgeyo-Marakwet County because oil is almost being explored there. Madam Temporary Speaker, you are very familiar with that area having been born and brought up in Elgeyo-Marakwet County. You have that duality. It is important for us to think of how we can make Kerio Valley a city? Can we buy land or put aside 1000 acres and call upon investors to invest on the land to put up a new town, city or investment hub? That is exactly what is happening in Konza City. That is part and parcel of how to develop new cities and create an incentive for investment promotion in those areas. Madam Temporary Speaker, as I said, there must be adequate accountability mechanisms particularly because of the amount of resources raised from those areas. There must also be institutional capacity. Do the people who are running the urban areas have the capacity to run urban areas? Are the people trained enough? Are counties hiring people because of competence? I hear governors now insisting that people can only be hired from their counties claiming that even national companies must only hire people from that county. They insist that 70 per cent of the jobs must be given to the locals. That is good politics for local politics. What about harnessing on the competence? There are not so many people in this country who have trained on urban areas management. Therefore, counties must be willing to tap into the resources that are in place and take advantage of how we can make our urban areas to become better. Nakuru County, for instance, has Nakuru, Naivasha, Mai Mahiu and Molo towns. Those are towns that to a great extent have potential of creating a lot of resources for the county and develop the other parts of the county which is agricultural. To do so, they must have clear policy on how services and resources are going to be used and proper fiscal management. We also have fiscal decentralization in the sense that we must ensure that all the resources that come from the national level get to the lowest unit so that for example, money is not collected in Nakuru County and used in Nakuru town at the expense of the other parts of the county. Madam Temporary Speaker, the other important chapter is on the urban economy. Some of the things that I have discussed relate to the formulation of the urban economy, orderly development of the urban areas, interconnection and the corridors. One big project that must be done in this country to start with in Nairobi, is the issue of light rail trains. I know that the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development is already working on light rail train that will operate from Ngong up to Githurai through Kibera. We will also have one from the city center up to Machakos. There will also be another one from Githurai to Thika another one to Kajiado from the city center. There must be these trains because countries with urban areas like ours have interconnections across three counties. If you go to cities like New York or Washington DC, which I am familiar with, you will discover that a place like Washington DC, has about six or seven lines; green line, red line, orange line and the rest that take people from Maryland via Washington DC to almost the end of Virginia. When you go there, you do not have to drive. You leave your car somewhere at a train terminus, enter into a train and go to the city. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}