And you're also very right about about the priorities of road building.
Mombasa is in dire need of various roads uplift and some new ones, too.
I wonder WHEN that will happen...? They charge us an arm and leg in fuel and road levy where they literally collect millions every single day, but, roads in Coast Province are in a very pathetic condition. This results in adding salt to our wounds - the price of fuels keeps going up, they don't fix roads and our vehicles (includes bicycles, motorbikes, etc.), get damaged, cause accidents and injury. This equates to more costs to the average citizen.
We are getting very FED UP of this set up.
Raziya
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 9:27 AM, odhiambo okecth <komarockswatch@yahoo.com> wrote:
Friends,
The cost of fuel has once again gone up by Kshs 2.00 in Nairobi and about similar margins across the Country.
This is happening at a time Kenya seems to be on the cross roads- do we go Vision 2030, Konza City Way, the Thika Motor Highway or what?
Through the Vision 2030, Kenya is hoping to achieve some given set of Economic gains, yet, when we are not able to manage and regulate the flow of Fuel, just fuel, how can we even think of achieving the objects of Vision 2030.
Fuel is in the middle of economic growth for any Nation. In the US, they have large deposits of Oil, yet, they are keeping tabs on what is happening in the Middle East. They do not have weekly price variations like we are being subjected to in Kenya.
Fuel drives our industries and when we fail to manage the cost of fuel in such a consistent manner, we are definitely not doing any justice to our citizens. And we are not being helpful to working towards our Visionless 2030.
The moment fuel goes up, it triggers a chain of events. Costs of production goes up and this comes with lots of suffering to the common man. Even for the Industrialists, they are at a loss on how to cost their inputs- courtesy of our Visionless Mandarins at the Energy Regulatory Board.
We have known this all along, the moment fuel goes up, it never comes down. We have been subjected to these rudderless fluctuations which plays with the pump price every so often yet, once the cost of bread goes up, it never comes down when these charlatans pretend to bring the cost of fuel down.
Kenya is replete with lost courses. We promised Kenyans at Independence that we will fight poverty, ignorance and disease and 49 years down the line, poverty has reached an alarming level. Many of us are still as ignorant as they can come and disease, even simple cases of flu cannot be treated by our Doctors.
Many Kenyans are getting sub-standard quality of education because, the teacher is concerned with how to make ends meet. Our housing estates are a test case of how human beings ought to live.
Yet, people whom we have given responsibility to lead and set the right tempo are busy competing at theft of national resources. This is where the Mandarins at the Energy Regulatory Board resides. They have no interest with Kenya trying to live Visionless 2030. They care less about our mothers who are trying had to feed the family, and they do not know what the National Aspirations are.
Look at what we are busy advertizing as Konza City- a dream city. True, it is a dream city. How can we manage this dream when we are not able to manage the current reality.
Nairobi is in filth. We have tried pushing the Mandarins at the City Hole to act on waste management and it seems like they have resigned their fate to their helplessness. How can Kenyans come together to keep helping a team that is out of touch with reality.
This is the Kenya we are messing. We are messing our own future. As a people, what trends are we setting for our children and the generation to come?
If it is on leadership, we are setting wrong standards. If it is on policy management and implementation, we are setting the wrong standards. If it is mitigating the cost of living, we are aggravating the situation and driving Kenyans into more poverty and want. And if it is in creating scandals, we are at our best.
We are very good with setting wrong priorities, and this we do knowingly. We set out to achieve water for all by the year 2,000 and this was never achieved. But, our policy makers made good money for themselves for driving the wrong policy. They went home dry and neat.
We set out to build roads across Kenya. Then we picked on a road that does not serve the economic life line of our Country as our pet project. Thika Road was not to be the road to build. The main economic artery for Kenya is the Mombasa Malaba Busia Road. Not Thika Road.
But our Policy Mandarins decided to go for Thika Road, because that was going to give them some quick wins to their banks. Of what economic value is Thika Road to Kenya? But there you are, policy makers messing Kenyans just for their quick material wins.
Why then can we not make all these County Roads as this one? Thika Road is a County Road serving the economic and commercial interest of a County, not the Country. We should have taken to build the road that gives us direct foreign income. Mombasa Malaba Busia Road is the one that adds to our economic value as a Country, not as a County.
Let me come back to what I had set to do. We must not play games with the minds of Kenyans in imposing these fuel fluctuations every so often. It simply proves how incompetent we are and it does nothing to help us achieve our Visionless 2030.
Odhiambo T Oketch
Komarock Nairobi
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