Report from Parliament: Thursday 12 October

By Mzalendo volunteer who'd like to remain anonymous.


Business: Debate on a sessional paper on road reconstruction in Kenya that was introduced by Roads Minister, Simeon Nyachae.
Quorum: Parliament had about 20 – 30 members including Vice president Moody Awori, Ministers - Nyachae, Karua, Munyao, Assistant Ministers - Toro, Serut, Tarus, MP's - Mwiraria, Maore, Omondi, Muturi, Biwott, Njoki Ndungi, Nakitare, Wakoli, others, and later Anthony Kimetto who prominently featured later.
Debate: Many mini conversations were going on among MP's during the session, and after each speaker finished, an MP on opposite side would stand to contribute to debate.

MP Maore: Comments supporting the paper
- Do away with bumps, which are unnecessary, hazardous, and, nuisances that damage cars and contribute to accidents rather than road safety. He said that on the 200 km road stretch between Makutano and Maua there were about 197 bumps!
- Have weighbridges at the ports to ensure vehicles are loaded properly, not on the highway. He said currently lorries the road carry 3X the load, and enough cash to bribe their way along
- Fix traffic lights (some of which have not worked in 20 years).

Minister Munyao: Comments supporting the paper
- Questioned why/how our road engineers, who train with other road engineers around the world, cannot put together decent roads.
- do away with roundabouts which are colonial relics
- Congratulated the current minister of roads for bringing the paper forward saying there is road construction activity throughout the country. He added that he was minister for "road construction" while his predecessor was a minister who only "inspected roads and spoke of by-passes when he actually dreamt of bypasses to power"

MP Biwott: Comments supporting the paper
- Called for more equitable distribution or roads money, even if the resources were limited. - noting that 20 constituencies did not get a single cent in the budget for roads
- Also called for roundabout to be eliminated

Vice President Awori: Comments supporting the paper
- Said as much as we support local contractors, perhaps we should give more road work to foreign contractors who have more expertise and resources
- Fix traffic lights - and now that we have serious minister, give him responsibly for their maintenance (taking that away from local authorities).
- Ensure road rules are followed including respect for the white cane (used by visually impaired persons)
-Bring back road repair crews who used to have camps set up around the country and would be responsible for road maintained at local level.
-Perhaps its time we do away with repairs on murram roads. In this constituency last year 70 million shillings worth of work was done to put murram on gravel roads – but once the rains came they washed away all that work. Instead we should concentrate on tarmacking roads - fewer will be done, it will take longer, but roads will last longer and be better.

MP Nakitare: Comments supporting the paper in Swahili
-Disappointed that our engineers and planners never foresaw growth when they designed roads long ago. At the time, cars were a luxury for only a few, now they are a necessity.
- Lamented previous policy to disband government road repair crews – who then sold equipment to private contractors. Contracts don't maintain roads, they only build them - and now ministry headquarters are out of touch with the state of roads at local level.

Conclusion

As another MP stood to speak at around 6:20 PM, MP Kimetto who had been sitting on a back bench stood up, got the speaker's attention and said: "Mr. Speaker is it proper for us to discuss this important debate with out a quorum?"

Speaker noted "yes we don't have a quorum" - and in the background, a bell was rang and some officials exited the chamber to summon MP's. Government whip Norman Nyagah entered and asked one official how many MP's were needed before he dashed out again. MP's would stream back in one by one, many asking "who alerted the speaker?" – and Kimetto would be pointed out. A few of them went over to talk to him and clearly they were not happy that business had been interrupted.

Nyagah came back in shaking his head and some officials also confirmed to the speaker that there were not enough MP's in the area to continue. So at 6:30 Pm, the Speaker adjourned parliament till Tuesday morning and led MP's out.

Posted by Mzalendo Editor on Oct. 13, 2006

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