Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 618724,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/618724/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 189,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We have touched on the Committee on Devolved Government. What we need to do more in this area is to create more linkages with the county assemblies. We need to liaise with them more, have conferences and meetings with them and find out what issues they are talking about at the county levels. We need to identify the key issues they want to quickly bring to the Senate; macro issues that can be handled at the Senate, so that we can discuss them. Many times when we visited other committees in some counties, one of the issues they kept raising was that they wished they could feel the impact of the Senate directly within the county assemblies in terms of an association and through the Speakers’ Forum, where Speakers of all county assemblies meet with the Speaker. That has been achieved to some extent. We need to have a bigger conference even if it is regional - if we cannot do per county - so that we can have the specific interaction. Further, devolution to a lower level is also something we need to begin thinking about and the Committee on Devolved Government could lead us in this process. For example, they could take devolution down to the wards, for example. This is because even at the county level there seems to be still an element of centrality, especially as a result of the way governors have gone about handling the issues within their particular counties. We need to have further devolution structures that will go to the wards and communities, so that communities can feel they have a direct link and say in what is happening. I do not know what it is with the issue of centrality that Kenyans love. I think it is a sense of power and the felling that “I am the person, I am the final word and everything lies with me.” We move towards centrality even in a process where we are trying to devolve. Just the other day, when I was in Kwale County, I had a young lady visiting from Nairobi. She was amazed at the Kwale County Office. There is just a reception and immediately you meet the Governor. She said that, that was one of the simplest structures she had seen in the county governments that she had visited. I was surprised and when I inquired more from her, she said that in some counties, before you get to the governor, you have to pass through at least three different offices. You have to pass through a reception and another place before you finally meet the governor. That is the worst example of centrality; moving away the governor who should be closer to the people. Are the governors and the County Executive Committee (CEC) members as accessible as they should be? They should be more accessible. We need to relook at all these issues and assess. We should also look at the issue of public participation, which has come up, over and over again. In the Budget Policy Statement Paper (BPS), there is a proposal for public participation, whether or not that money will be given after the debate. However, in one way or another, county governments need to do proper public participation and more education for people to know that the best oversight is from the people themselves. If the people themselves hold the county governments accountable, they will be answerable for more things. The people’s oversight is a question of public participation and more civic education, so that they can know their intersession point. When budgets are being made and projects being implemented, how are the people being involved? It The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}