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{
    "id": 811445,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/811445/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The preamble to this Bill is clear, that the issue of county roads has got the remotest attention from the drafters of this Bill. If you read the preamble, it says that it is a Bill for:- ‘an Act of Parliament to provide for the classification, management, construction and maintenance of public roads; to establish the Kenyan National Highways.’ It says nothing about the county government. Secondly, it talks about the Kenya National Urban Roads and thirdly, it talks of Kenya National Secondary Roads Authority. As a Senate, we must be assertive and must truly defend devolution. The best way to defend devolution is to resist and resist firmly any Bill that wants to deny county governments resources that are meant to change the road infrastructure in our counties. I must register my protest and I will protest even if it means protesting alone against a Government that wants to deny counties money that can help improve the road infrastructure. I will protest during the day, at night and even for 24 hours a week. If you read through this Bill, the attention is about national roads. There is nothing on how we shall improve roads in our counties. I come from a County where the only tarmacked road is the one that passes through Kericho-Sotik-Keroka. The other tarmacked road is the one that passes through Kericho-Ikonge-Nyamira-Kisii. If you give my County 16 per cent, when will the people of the great County of Nyamira see tarmacked roads yet we define county roads as those roads that are connecting one constituency to another. Those are the roads in our counties and they are the ones that we are fighting for in order for them to receive enough resources that can enable people in the remotest parts of our counties to have tarmacked roads. There are people here who imagine that the roads that matter are those roads that connect people from Nairobi-Thika-Nyeri or from Nairobi-Machakos-Mombasa. Every region in this country matters and what we should be talking about such roads is maintenance. If we have been giving money to KeNHA for the last five years for them to construct national roads then why are we thinking about giving them more money? Instead, we should give them 16 per cent to maintain those roads and give more resources to the county governments, so that we open up the counties to attract investors to come and do business and create employment for people in our counties. 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."
}