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"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for the opportunity to also make my valid comments on this Motion by the Senator for Narok, Sen. Olekina, on the important matter of pending bills in our counties. A few months back, the Auditor-General, Madam Nancy, was heavily quoted by various media houses trying to tell Kenyans that in accounting terms, there is nothing called pending bills. This is another invention by Kenyans. However, in accountancy, there is nothing called pending bills. It is a debt. What they are calling pending bills is a debt. She went ahead and questioned and said that every county, including the national Government, has a budget. Therefore, you budget and say these are the things I want to do for the year. How come you end up not being paid? You should pay. Even as we are discussing this Motion, I am finding it a bit awkward for us to keep on lamenting about pending bills in our counties and the national Government, yet we are doing nothing about it."
},
{
"id": 1407782,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407782/?format=api",
"text_counter": 361,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when you talk about pending bills, it means you have no budget control and performance in your county. Why do they pass budgets? Why do the MCAs sit there and approve budgets? Why are those budgets taken to the CoB and what does the CoB do with those budgets? These are serious questions that we should be asking ourselves since there are gaps in the process which lead to people not being paid."
},
{
"id": 1407783,
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"text_counter": 362,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
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"content": "I believe if the MCAs who approved this budget monitor the implementation of this budget and the CoB is able to look at the budget critically and approve requisitions"
},
{
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"text_counter": 363,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13588,
"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
"slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
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"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1407785,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407785/?format=api",
"text_counter": 364,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
"slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
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"content": "that are made to her based on the budget that she has, we would not have this challenge of pending bills."
},
{
"id": 1407786,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407786/?format=api",
"text_counter": 365,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13588,
"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
"slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
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"content": "We have this problem of pending bills - Apart from corruption, we lack discipline in our system. I have sat in this House and every afternoon; I hear Members raising statements on the issue of pending bills. I have also raised a statement on pending bills in my county. They appear before the Committee on Finance and Budget and promise that they will do some things. However, when they go on the ground, the culture continues. The bad manners continue."
},
{
"id": 1407787,
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"text_counter": 366,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13588,
"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
"slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
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"content": "We have had people with historical pending bills all the way from 2014 to now. These are people who have delivered. They constructed hospitals and roads, but they are told they cannot be paid simply because one or two papers are missing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, our county governments must be serious. I agree with the amendments proposed by the Mover of this Motion that one of the things we need to do is to insist on having a payment plan delivered to the CoB. The payment plan should give priority to historical pending bills so that you do not pay new bills when we have people who supplied since the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, yet they have not been paid to date. Some of them have died while others have closed businesses and you are paying your friends’ current bills. Something has to be done. The biggest problem we are having is the payment of historic pending bills. Some of them are not paid because maybe the governor who is there did not like them, or maybe they were competitors with the former governor, so he ends up not paying the historical pending bills. In order to do justice to our people, this Motion has to be amended to make it very clear that all historic pending bills must be paid by all the county governments. I like the proposal in this Motion that all these pending bills, which are less than Kshs1 billion, must be paid before the end of this year, and the ones which are over Kshs1 billion must be paid before 2024/2025 financial year. This can be done. It is not something difficult to do. This House has powers. We are the ones who approve money that goes into our counties. Why can we not exercise our power for the first time so that our county governments start doing the right thing. Today we have passed the Division of Revenue Bill (National Assembly Bills No.14 of 2024). Very soon, we are going to do allocation to our counties. Can we be very clear? Can we put these resolutions that we have in this Motion in that Bill so that we demand that historic pending bills be cleared before the end of this year? We can demand that all the existing projects be completed before new ones are done because that is another problem we are having in our counties. I suggest that, as much as we are going to pass this Bill, we should also put these recommendations that we are putting in here, on the county allocation that we are going to work on in the few coming days. I started by saying pending bills is a sign of failure in our system. We established an office called CoB. I want to be very clear that this office is not effective. This office is inefficient. The CoB keeps on lamenting. However, there are simple things that committees of this House have asked the CoB to do, and she is not doing."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13588,
"legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
"slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
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"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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{
"id": 1407789,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"content": "The CoB appeared before County Public Investments and Special Funds Committee and we directed her to prioritize the automation of our office. It has not been done. I am told because she has now realized there are some monkey games that go on between governors and her officers, she has now decided to go through her files herself. This has made our counties to continue suffering. Approvals are being delayed. We have raised an issue of diversion of funds, that there is a budget, she has a copy of the budget. Counties make requisitions to her. She looks at the requisitions and approves them. However, when counties go home, they introduce and pay new things. The CoB is unable to resolve this problem. I expect that this House must summon the CoB to appear in this House. We have a Committee of the Whole House, so that some of these issues affecting our office and counties can be addressed, particularly the problem of diversion of funds, which ends up being corruption. We should also ask ourselves one important question. Why are our counties not able to meet targets on own source revenue? Counties were established, not just to be avenues for sharing the national cake, but also as economic units to generate their own money. When the national Government delays to send money, the counties are paralysed because they are over dependent on the money from the national Government. They have many sources of own source revenue, which either deliberately they have refused to maximize on that, or they are sleeping on the job. It saddens that the defunct local authorities were making more money than the county government now. Then you ask yourself, why? We are in an era of technology. They have more resources than the defunct local authorities, but they are not able to raise money to support their own source revenue. The issue of own source revenue in our counties is another conversation that this House must have because counties have now turned into employment bureaus and corruption scenes when we have avenues for own source revenue. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the issue of delayed disbursement of funds. Next week, I will be bringing a Motion on that. I do not understand why we pass the disbursement schedule every year in this House, indicating that monies will be sent to counties on the 15th day of every month. Then, someone junior in the National Treasury decides to disregard all that and sends money to the counties when he feels, like three months later or four months later. Then, why do we sit here to pass the disbursement schedule?"
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"speaker": null,
"content": "(Applause)"
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