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{
    "id": 775032,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/775032/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "In fact, the committees and boards, as far as I am concerned are just where we are putting people to earn sitting allowances for nothing. It is not necessary. In fact, if you go to some of these centres---. When I was the President of Rotary International and I was constructing toilets in Kibera, I just got those guys to organize themselves. They cleared the garbage for all those sites and we constructed toilets. We did not need a committee; they did it themselves. All I did was to ensure that for the ten facilities that I did in Silanga, in Kibera; the funds were available. These committees are a waste of public resources. The county governments must appoint managers for every market and not these ten people sitting and one of them holds a bachelor’s degree. What is the degree for? In Toi market, what you need to do is to make sure it is clean. You do not need a person with a degree. In any event, we want to provide employment to our youth and some of them would not meet these criteria. It is not objective at all. As I support this Bill, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I urge the Committee that is going to look at this to put in a little more effort. Prof. Winnie Mitullah was my teacher and maybe it is time we consulted her again and made sure that we have cities. I have gone to small little towns outside the country and you will be embarrassed to say you come from Nairobi. Simple little things like management of water, like what we were talking about a few minutes ago--- One of the distinguishing features about the cities of Beijing, London, and Geneva is actually a river or a clean water source. Maybe that is what this Senate should strive to do in Nairobi as a beginning so that by the time we go to Nakuru to check on Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha, we would have been more useful. We should then compel the county governments, through the Urban Areas and Cities Act 2011, to have town planning. One of the things that you do not have and which will not make Nakuru a city, is the town planning. You know how your city is; you know how crowded it is. The person who has a tuk tuk, the person who has a matatu and the person who is selling their wears are on the same road. All of them are looking for space. They are all hooting like the world is coming to an end. That is your problem in Nakuru and major cities because there is no planning. The hotels are facing one another and nobody knows what the other person is building. If you go to Athi River, for example, how on earth did somebody approve construction of cement factories in the middle of residences? Day and night, they are grinding stone, generating all that dust. In fact, the people who live in a place called Sidai and opposite, as you go to the interchange in Athi River, do not open their windows because of poor planning. Somebody thought that they should put up a cement factory. The one in Kajiado is possibly better placed because it is far away from human habitation. I wish we can do what Bamburi Cement Company did in Mombasa. You would not know that there is a cement factory in the middle of that city because they have planted so many trees that absorb the dust. You would not know that you are breathing limestone because the trees that they have planted have taken care of that. Something went wrong in Nairobi and unless we can input here, it will not help us. I do not know whether the Senate Majority Leader mentioned the Metropolitan Urban Policy by the national Government that was tabled in the National Assembly last year. 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."
}