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{
"id": 881882,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/881882/?format=api",
"text_counter": 186,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
"speaker": {
"id": 110,
"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
"slug": "john-mbadi"
},
"content": "I remember when some of us came to Nairobi in the late 1980s. I came to Nairobi in 1991 and there was an organised transport system. I can see my friend wondering that I came to Nairobi in 1991. I came ahead of him. I thought he was wondering that I came later. Now I can see I am growing old. There was organised public transport in the city. We had the Kenya Bus Service which was so organised. If you want to control fares, you do not fix the amount of fares. The best way to do it is to enhance organised competition. The problem we have in this country is that almost all sectors of the economy are controlled by cartels. So, the transport sector is also captured by cartels. After the KBS exited, we should have had an organised public transport. What we need to debate, as a House, is how we should actualise the possibility of having an organised public transport, where you would board a bus and if you want to sleep, you sleep. Currently, you board a matatu and the moment you get in, it is like you are in a disco. The moment you get in, the seat belts are either not there or they are very dirty. When you get in, you see seats, but all of a sudden, a multitude of people crowd around you, some standing, some leaning and some sitting on you. I know many of us here do not experience what I have just said. I experienced it before I bought my personal car and I know it because I live with people who still use matatus . In my view, the solution, and which I would advise Hon. Didmus Barasa to propose to this House… This is a good Motion, but if it was a Bill, I would have been reluctant to approve it. We need to seriously think of how we should have that organised public transport. You cannot start telling people that you are going to charge Kshs100 from this day to this day. Thinking that we can regulate all the sectors of the economy is something that also affects the economy. Look at the banking sector. Because of the cartels, we had to make a decision which, to me, was very radical and which does not make any economic sense, that now we have fixed interest rates. It does not make economic sense. If you are an economist or a finance person, you know it does not make economic sense to fix interest rates chargeable or payable. However, why did we have to do it? We did it out of frustration because the cartels had already captured the banking sector. Even if you pleaded and talked with them, it would not help. Actually, we were even threatening them, but they were not taking any action. In fact, the banking sector had reached a point that they were a law unto themselves and they never imagined that Parliament would rein in on them. Several attempts were made to control that sector. It was not possible, but we did something that does not make economic sense out of frustration. Now I see the same happening in this House. We are again going to do the same thing through Hon. Didmus Barasa’s Motion even though I think he has a genuine concern for the people of Kenya. Everybody is concerned about the fares. Every December, bus companies just decide to hike fares sometimes by 300 per cent. You ask yourself why and yet the roads are still the same, the distance is the same and the price of fuel is also the same. Sometimes the price of fuel even goes down, but just because Kenyans are desperate to go to their rural areas, transporters decide to triple the fare. That is not justifiable. It is theft and we need to rein in on them. In fact, I think we need to rein in on the owners of buses and matatus . We need to ensure that only people with good record are employed as drivers and matatu touts. We cannot have criminals controlling an important sector like the public transport. You find that it is people who take hard drugs who are employed to manage the sector. Just the other day, someone was hit by a matatu . He was driving along Thika Road and he was hit by a matatu and instead of the matatu taking responsibility, the touts came out and killed him. It is inhuman and that is because we have criminals on the road controlling a very important sector where lives of Kenyans are at stake. That is why we have so many accidents on our roads. 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."
}