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{
    "id": 776532,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/776532/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 155,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to also contribute to the Kenya Roads Bill. Immediately when the devolved units started functioning in 2013, there were a lot of issues around the maintenance of roads and even their funding. There was fighting among governors, Members of Parliament and Members of County Assemblies. The whole country was debating how effectively we would execute or discharge the function of maintaining roads. Hon. Speaker, interestingly, this matter has taken this long to be addressed through legislation. A lot of the issues that we still face regarding maintenance of roads are as a result of lack of a legal framework which would clearly define which roads are county roads and which ones remain with the national Government. You remember that a number of roads in Kenya were classified as rural roads, and they were put under the Kenya Rural Roads Authority. Therefore, the assumption at that time was that all those roads would be maintained by the county governments. Some of the roads were so important to the economy of this country. There is the question of capacity of our young county governments to manage those roads. I remember that immediately the county governments came into being, I did not have a single road in my constituency that fell under the national Government. Even when I was pushing for one of the roads to be improved to bitumen standards, it was not very easy to get the authority of the county government to sign the release papers. That made it very untidy. The national Government wants to improve the road network but it cannot do so because the authority has to come from the governors. In the absence of cooperating governors, the process of improving rural roads to bitumen standard would not start. Later, the road was re-classified to Class B. That demonstrates how significant that road is. It was initially a Class D road. It became necessary to re-classify it from Class D to Class B because part of the road links Kenya with Tanzania and Uganda. The issue of reclassification of roads in this country took so long. I am happy that we are at least coming out clearly to define Class S roads, Class A and Class D roads, among other classes of roads across the country. It is now going to be clear which roads are in the hands of county governments. Right now, there are only two roads that fall under the national Government in my county. One is being improved to bitumen standard. The other one is where we put what we used to call KeRRA allocation of 22 per cent. The rest of the roads fall under the county government. There is no specific funding for these roads, and they are numerous. There are many of them. Some of them were opened when I was serving my first time in Parliament. Some of them were even opened earlier but since 2012, those roads have not been improved at all. You would imagine how many rainy seasons we have had yet those roads are not being maintained. When you talk to county government, they do not receive any money from the Fuel Levy Fund – which is meant for routine maintenance of the roads. The county governments say that they do not provide funding for maintenance of those roads because they do not have any funds. Now that we have clearly defined which roads are county government roads, and now that we are putting 15 per cent of the Fuel Levy Fund to go to the county roads, I hope they will The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}