Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 813634,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/813634/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 136,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Eng.) Hargura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 827,
        "legal_name": "Godana Hargura",
        "slug": "godana-hargura"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I thank Sen. Kasanga for coming up with this Motion because these are things that some of us have been trying to discuss with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development and relevant authorities, especially the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KERRA). We have been urging them to take it upon themselves to develop the relevant standards. I think they will be more serious about it because it is now from the Senate. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as the Motion says, transport is important for any development. For any movement of goods and services, we require good roads. Kenya is mainly an agricultural country. Most of our production is done in the rural areas. Therefore, there must be good roads to transport the produce to the markets. Otherwise, we will not get anywhere in terms of development. As it has been said by one Senator, farmers will sell their produce at a throw away price to brokers because they do not have anywhere else to sell them. Roads are the necessary links to make sure that we move from one point to another. As it is now, traffic jam in Kenya is at 90 per cent. That shows how important roads are. This is due to the few bitumen roads that have been constructed. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we need to focus on rural areas so that we can enable our people to market their goods and transport people back to rural areas. Nowadays, funds are devolved to the counties level. We need our people to produce, create jobs and improve the economy. However, that is not happening because we are not improving our rural roads in any innovative way. We are using the standard ways of waiting for the traffic to reach a certain standard, then we gravel and, later on, improve it to bitumen standards. This does not work because we need to develop the roads to ease traffic jams. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the Motion urges the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development to develop and adopt standard policy regulations prescribing modern eco-friendly and inexpensive technologies to be applied across the 47 counties for construction, upgrading and maintenance of rural access roads; in order to ensure durability and sustainability of access roads and reduce expenses. This is basically to come up with a policy. If you look at Part I of the Fourth Schedule of our Constitution, it talks of the functions of the national Government, Clause 18 (c) says:- “It is a function of the national Government to make sure they come up with standards for construction and maintenance of other roads by 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."
}