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{
    "id": 701401,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/701401/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 243,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Secondly, I the reason I am very particular about the foundations of democracy and devolution is that a village council is extremely important not only for implementing the planning project of development and devolution, but also implementing them in terms of popular participation. If counties do not have structures up to the village level that enable and facilitate popular participation as envisaged in the Constitution as well as the County Governments Act, then, indeed, we are not serious about implementing devolution. Therefore, this report that appeals for the transfer of functions to various county governments is extremely important. The national Government should be filial to the Constitution and the transitional and consequential provisions because this country is a rule-based country as a constitutional democracy. What is glaring in counties is that certain institutions have not been transferred to the county governments and that must be done expeditiously. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me take the area of agriculture which is a county government function. Therefore, all the functions that were resident in the national Government before the coming to be of the present Constitution ought to be transferred to the county governments. For example, one of the reasons why we went to court to stop the Government from privatizing the sugar mills is because we realised that privatisation was being done without taking cognizance of the County Governments Act and the Constitution. Land and agriculture are county functions. I am the Chairman of the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC). Factories are an investment on land and agriculture in counties. If the structure and ownership of that investment will change, we must involve ourselves in the discussion. The aspect of Government responsible for land and agriculture must express its interest and how it will be done. The ability to take a quantum leap into the new Constitution and do things in a different way has become rather difficult for the Kenyan Government. When it comes to the nitty-gritty of transferring functions except the obvious, then there is reluctance to do so. This delays development, job creation and expansion of the economy. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, another area is infrastructure. There is no God given law that stops any county from establishing a rail system or says that communication within a county will forever be by road. Earth roads are in the long run very expensive to maintain. You have to grade them every year and pay people to do so. If you compute the amount of money that a county government will spend over five years grading county roads, it is much cheaper in the long run to establish light rails in counties and have rapid transit systems using coaches than travelling by road. In more civilized countries, rail road transportation is the in-thing. In most cities of the world, light rail system can be used by deploying commuter trains. I was in the little city of Poznan in Poland in May. They use electric buses running on rails. That little city is not bigger than Kisumu but the importance of using rail transport where rail cars run is cheaper and secondly, environmentally friendly. With the rate at which population growth is taking place in our country, particularly in the urban areas, within the next 25 years, majority of our people will be living in urban centres. They will need transportation. Thinking that we will rely on road transportation with a lot of petroleum products is short sightedness. 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"
}