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{
    "id": 563775,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/563775/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 40,
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    "content": "Kshs287 billion allocated to the county governments, Kshs27 billion will be spend by county assemblies. It is important that this issue is put into proper context. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the additional Kshs2.5 billion will come from the recurrent expenditures of the county executives. It does not come out of the development. This is where the county governors are misleading the public. Out of the Kshs287 billion that is being given to the county governments, only Kshs27 billion will go to the county assemblies. The remaining Kshs260 billion will go to recurrent expenditures of the county executives. As I speak, there is no ceiling, limit or control on the county executive on how much money they actually spend on their travel, motor vehicles and fuel. Some of the budgets that have been submitted to the Controller of Budget, you will find that recurrent expenditures represent as much as 60 per cent of their budget. In fact, very few of them have development expenditures of 40 per cent. The majority have development expenditures of between 20 to 30 per cent. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the same CoG who are complaining why we are giving Kshs2.5 billion to the county assemblies are completely oblivious of the fact that in their backyard they are spending nearly Kshs200 billion on recurrent expenditures. Again, these are the same inefficiencies and wastages that the Auditor-General has been talking about in his report every year. They do not want us to empower and build the capacity of the county assemblies, so that they can effectively oversight. In fact, in the wisdom of this House, we are giving adequate money to the county assemblies to be able to carry out their mandate effectively and address most of the problems bedeviling them. Every day we are getting petitions in this House from members of the public complaining about wastage, looting and misuse of funds in counties. It is a pity that the CoG cannot see the log in their eye. They want to complain about the peck in the eyes of the poor little fellows whom we are giving money. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to make it very clear that we are not touching development money. The fact that the county governments had not finalized their budgets making process at the time we passed this Bill, we are asking them to adjust their expenditures accordingly and provide for this money. It is not a lot of money. In fact, the adjustments range from Kshs50 million, Kshs30 million and Kshs20 million, respectively, on the county assemblies expenditure in the counties. We want county assemblies to have adequate resources to operate effectively. That is the message. We want them to have the resources to legislate effectively. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for example, Meru County where the Chairman of the CoG comes from, the county assembly petitioned our Committee through the Senator of Meru who delivered that paper. They made it very clear that the cost of drafting legislation alone by that assembly was running into tens of millions of Kenya shillings because they had to hire the services of draftsmen and other experts to draft legislation. A lot of legislations that they wanted to draft were pending because they did not have enough money. They asked for some money to cover these costs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the CRA has completely failed in their mandate. We told them that instead of sitting with the county assemblies and telling them that this is The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}