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{
    "id": 997012,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/997012/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 877,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kibwezi West, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Patrick Musimba",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1804,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Mweu Musimba",
        "slug": "patrick-mweu-musimba"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for this opportunity. You echo it so well when you talk about our concerns regarding boundaries like what we are currently experiencing in Makueni with Taita Taveta. The bone of contention is issues to do with revenue. You will find that outdoor advertising - and I am sure the Committee has captured that - is a business running into hundreds of billions a year in the Republic of Kenya. It could develop into a very sore issue. This Bill is timely. The issue which I would invite the Committee to venture into is where you want to allow individual counties to come up with their own parallel Bills. That needs to be corrected to simply state that they need to forward harmonised regulations that would take care of unique scenarios. This refers to standardisation in the way we are putting up the infrastructure. You must appreciate that along the highways and within even the localities and county headquarters, those billboards are huge infrastructure that bring into question the issue of safety standards which come under the confines of the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA). You do not want a billboard to be so distracting that someone forgets to look at the road and is still staring at the billboard when the lights have gone green and it causes an accident. Some electronic billboards whose lights are so glaring would blind people. Those are the issues which come along in terms of safety. We already have harmonisation committees by the NTSA in conjunction with the county governments that can ably address this and come up with a standardisation mode. Further to that, you find issues to do with the development which are captured well by Hon. T.J. Kajwang’ when he speaks about the constitutionality of who owns what property. We know a lot of budgets of county governments are involved. They are informed by own source revenue. These become contentious issues especially in development of roads when you know highways occupy an eight-metre radius from the middle of the road in each direction. Arguably, you would say that the land where the billboard infrastructure has been put is outside of that confine. Those preambles need to come to forth. We should also look at the issues of the content, recognition and obligation by companies which are doing outdoor advertising in terms of national concerns. Currently, we have the Coronavirus pandemic. I would have expected a scenario where all billboards come down irrespective of who has put them up and we address that national concern purely as a corporate social responsibility (CSR). It should be what people see so that they are educated and sensitised on something which is very important to the public. On national days, we have had a practice since Independence that all shops display the national flag on them, but you do not see the same being done by outdoor advertising agencies. There is a lacuna there. These are important days to do with patriotism. The preamble of the Constitution calls upon everyone to live a life that leaves Kenya as a going concern. Indeed, foster is for the next future generation. Advertising will always be at the core of this."
}