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{
    "id": 912799,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/912799/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 159,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sirisia, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Waluke",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2792,
        "legal_name": "John Waluke Koyi",
        "slug": "john-waluke-koyi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me a chance to also contribute on this Motion. At the outset, I thank Hon. Osoro for bringing it. I support the Motion because it is important to us and to the people of this nation. Drivers forget the rules when they drive for some time and they need refresher courses, as Hon. Osoro has proposed. There have been unnecessary deaths. You can imagine you have paid a driver to take you home in a taxi, or you boarded a bus or a matatu and then you end up dying. It is very sad for somebody’s life to be shortened like that. We lose 3,000 people in the country every year. We can control these accidents by taking drivers for refresher courses to remind them of the Highway Code. Some of them are just matatu touts or conductors who just practise or learn to drive from time to time. For a long time, the Government has been paying Kshs300 billion to the families of the 3,000 people that we lose every year. The Government can save that money for other things if our people are reminded or educated on how to drive and adhere to road rules. One day, I was driving around the Serena Hotel towards Hurlingham and I stopped because pupils were crossing from Serena Hotel towards Uhuru Park. Just when I stopped, somebody in a Range Rover came and knocked one boy down. I felt so bad. It is not just matatus or bus drivers who do not know the Highway Code. Even some Members of Parliament do not know. They just take things for granted. It is important for us to be reminded. The police are also not doing their job well. These accidents are mostly caused by reckless police officers on our roads. I have done my research and discovered that many matatus are owned by traffic police officers. When a matatu driver is arrested by another police officer, the officer will just call to inform the owner that his driver has been arrested because he has caused an accident. They will just leave him, and he gets away scot-free. Maybe, he has caused death and people are injured, but action is not taken because the vehicle belongs to a police officer. It is said that when a traffic commander sends police officers to the road in the morning, he gives them a target of, say, Kshs100,000, which must be taken to him in the evening. It must stop. I say this as the Vice-Chair of the Departmental Committee on Administration and National Security. We have taken action on this. We wrote a letter to notify the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government that we want to talk about the traffic police section. With those few remarks, I support the Motion."
}