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{
    "id": 776533,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/776533/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 156,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "be careful enough not to create unnecessary agencies which would take a lot of money meant for development to finance operations. I hope the county governments will prioritise our rural roads. The rural economy is affected heavily and significantly by these roads. One thing I cannot understand is that Members of the County Assemblies always push for the opening of new roads instead of maintaining existing roads to make them motorable. Therefore, they end up with many roads that do not serve the people. I want to plead with the county governments and MCAs; that, they gain nothing by opening new roads so that people can say “this road was opened by Mbadi” when such road is serving no one. Instead, allocate those resources to the rural roads that exist. Make them motorable. I would not mind walking one kilometre to reach a road instead of cheating me that you are opening a road to my home. What I am saying is that the county governments need to come to terms with prioritisation of roads. It should now be clear how much money goes to the Kenya Secondary Roads Authority and which roads are remaining with KeRRA. This body will be responsible for Class C and Class D. In the last Parliament, we used to call those roads “orphaned” roads. The urban roads were clearly defined. Class A and B roads are clearly defined. Those are the ones under the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA). The funds for those roads go there but they were orphaned because no one cared for them. If you go to the county government, they tell you that they are not responsible for those roads and refer you to the area Member of Parliament. If you come to the MP, the MP says that road maintenance is no longer a National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) function. If you put a road project under the NG- CDF, it will not be approved. That means Members of Parliament have no responsibility over road maintenance. There is something fundamental I want to speak to. I want to address the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing. He is aware of it. When we plan to do roads, we need to be careful. We should avoid populist initiatives. We should avoid pretending that we can do so much when we cannot because we do not have the resources. I hear a lot of talk from the Jubilee side that they have done 9,000 kilometres of road. In fact, someone was asking me where the 9,000 kilometres are. I was telling them that I know why Jubilee talks about 9,000 kilometres. The moment Jubilee starts a road project of, say 50 kilometres, they do three kilometres and tell you that they have done 50 kilometres. You will see from the list of the roads they published. I am speaking from experience. I have seen the list of the roads they have tabulated as having been done. It is true that they have started the project, but they have not been done. Something that has been done is totally different from something you have started doing. The most important thing is that when you start doing a road, you allocate money for it. The Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing is in serious problems. He had to appear before us as Members of the Budget and Appropriations Committee to plead with us to give him money because as a matter of fact, the confession is, road projects are ongoing. Contracts have been awarded. Contractors are on site but there is no money to pay them. Therefore, this is something that, as a country, we need to look at, especially at this time when we have issues with ballooning debt levels. We should not bite more than we can chew. It is better to be realistic with ourselves and speak up, if you are not prioritising correctly. I do not mind you taking one critical road network in say Homa Bay County and doing it instead of every constituency competing to have a piece of some 10-kilometre road, which ends in the middle of nowhere. That will not help in spurring economic growth in this country. 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."
}