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"speaker_name": "Sen. Kathuri",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Speaker",
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"legal_name": "Murungi Kathuri",
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"content": " You should not go that route. 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": 1494993,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494993/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
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"content": "I am guided. However, this is so serious because they are doing so at the expense of oversight. To the extent that today, as I speak, there is no single contractor on site anywhere in the expansive Kakamega County, all the way from Matungu to Likuyani, a distance of over 200 kilometres. Therefore, I am doing it for the sake of my contractor from Mumias who last week got a stroke because of pending bills. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we had strong county assemblies, the pending bills would be interrogated in the county assemblies. They would not be waiting to come to the County Public Investments Committee and Special Funds (CPICSF) and County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC) here in the Senate. Let us take this Bill very seriously so that governors can stop being little kings. Some have even started to want to become kingpins. I congratulate you and I also want to inform you that I have an idea why the voice of Senator Mo Faya has changed. It has become deeper, louder and authoritative. I did know that these things can happen by rubbing or by osmosis. Where is Sen. Mo Faya? He has left. By extension, the one of Thang’wa has become thinner and frail. I will talk to them so that they tell me why the contrast. I thank you."
},
{
"id": 1494994,
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"speaker": null,
"content": "(Laughter)"
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{
"id": 1494995,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kathuri",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Speaker",
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"content": " Sen. Oburu Odinga."
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{
"id": 1494996,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Oburu",
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"speaker": {
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"legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for the opportunity. I first take this opportunity to congratulate you for being very insightful and foresighted in bringing this Bill. I am a veteran in this Parliament; I have been in this Parliament for over 30 years. I can tell you that there was one time when this Parliament was fully dependent on the Office of the President (OP). Our budget was done through the OP. We were fully dependent on them and the Treasury. The oversight role that we were supposed to play was done through by sometimes blackmailing the Treasury in order for them to release some money for us. We would refuse to approve the budget and put all sorts of pressure on the executive, yet we were supposed to be oversighting them, but they used that budget because they held the purse. Those who hold the strings of the purse call the shots. They used it to make sure that their agenda went through. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, at that time, we were not supposed to oversight the budget. The budget would be banged on us and we could not scrutinize those huge documents. One of my former Members of Parliament (MPs), hon. Oloo Aringo, who is now late and is still lying in state, did a great job for this country and there were many others who supported him. We all supported him and he did a lot of insightful research and came up with proposals on the way forward. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, at that time, there was a lot of resistance from the executive. It took a long time of struggle. It was not one person, but the whole Parliament. We were fighting to get our space. We then managed to get a budget 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": 1494997,
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"text_counter": 123,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Oburu",
"speaker_title": "",
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"id": 194,
"legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
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"content": "committee which was hived from the committee I was chairing at the that time. This was the Committee on Finance. When it was hived off, we got a budget committee and we could now scrutinize the budget before it was brought and banked. We were using colonial laws, which only allowed us to deduct Kshs20, which was one pound. That is the only thing Parliament could deduct from the budget. Therefore, Parliament was held at ransom although we were called oversight in quotes. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you are giving the counties something which they have not struggled for long as the Parliament did to get PSC, the Budget Committee to scrutinise the budget. This Bill which you have brought will enable the MCAs to have some little bit of autonomy. However, that autonomy will not come until we also do something else. Maybe somebody else should take up this matter. I do not think I have that energy now to take up the matter. However, I am advising Sen. Osotsi to take up this matter. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is actually making it very difficult for MCAs to oversight the executive. If you look at the pay slip of the MCAs, it is peanuts. Yet they are oversighting somebody who is getting over Kshs1 million in a month. They are getting something less than Kshs100,000. I looked at the pay slip of one MCA from Nakuru who tabled it before our Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations. I said this is one way of disabling MCAs to do the oversight. You cannot do oversight when you are suffering pecuniary embarrassment. The amount of money you are getting is peanuts. We must find a way of dealing with this issue of remunerating the MCAs properly. However, this will not be part of this Bill. I support what Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale has suggested that we carry out an amendment not to make a monster out of the clerk. If you give one individual to be the one controlling after removing it from the county executive and from the county treasury, then we will be creating another monster in the assembly. It will not do well to MCAs whom we are targeting to empower so that they can properly oversight the executive. I hope you will consider that proposal by Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale. I just stood up to support what you are doing. It is a great job. It is following some history. I hope that this is one of the cornerstones of our role of strengthening devolution and we will do more. I saw a committee of this House negotiating with the National Assembly on the funds. That kind of ongoing negotiation is portraying that this Senate is very serious on strengthening devolution. We cannot oversight the county executives if they do not get proper allocation of money. We must first make sure that money goes there and then we follow it to see that it is properly implemented in the service of our people. Thank you for the opportunity. I fully support this Bill with the amendments."
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"id": 1494998,
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"text_counter": 124,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kathuri",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 13590,
"legal_name": "Murungi Kathuri",
"slug": "murungi-kathuri"
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"content": " Next is Sen. Dullo Fatuma."
},
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"id": 1494999,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494999/?format=api",
"text_counter": 125,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Dullo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13125,
"legal_name": "Dullo Fatuma Adan",
"slug": "dullo-fatuma-adan"
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. Let me join my colleagues in congratulating you for having come up with this legislation. It is long overdue. I hope it will cure the challenges that we have in our counties. I like the proposals that you have made in this particular legislation; more specifically on the way that the board should be constituted and again as far as the clerk 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": 1495000,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Dullo",
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"id": 13125,
"legal_name": "Dullo Fatuma Adan",
"slug": "dullo-fatuma-adan"
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"content": "being the administrator of the fund is concerned. However, in that particular one, I will have to give a rider to proposal made by Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale. We normally see a lot of fight between the clerk, MCAs and the Speaker as far as budget utilisation is concerned. If those powers will be given to the clerk, then the MCAs will be irrelevant. Your proposal is to empower the MCAs. I believe the proposal made by Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale is valid. Wherever there is administrator, utilisation or removal of the budget for any purpose, I will propose in consultation with the board that is the only way the clerk should be able to use the money. In that way, the clerk will be accountable to the assembly. In practise, the clerk and the Speaker are employees of the assembly. However, looking at the salary given to the Speaker and the clerk; it is nothing comparable to salary given to the MCAs. If I can give an example of my county, you can imagine a speaker earning Kshs500,000 and the clerk Kshs400,000, respectively, while the MCAs earn Kshs200,000 plus. These are employees of the MCAs and yet they are earning more than them. I will propose also, as a House, we must do something about the salary of the MCAs. You cannot oversight or employ somebody who is earning more than you. He will never respect you. The CECMs are all earning more than the MCAs. That is ridiculous. We must do something about the salary of the MCAs. The other proposal that I want to make is where you indicated utilisation of the budget for emergency purposes. We have to be specific. What are those emergencies? County governments are already misusing the budget allocated to them under emergency. In this particular case, if we are not very careful, there could be duplication of the same fund for the same activities. It has to be specific on what they should spend on as far as budget allocation is concerned. County assemblies are living in a very deplorable situation. If I may speak of my county of Isiolo, last week, some MCAs came out and condemned on certain payrolls. Can you imagine the governor colluding with the speaker and the rest of the members to remove them from all the committees of the House and to suspend them for six months, one particular member from the House? It is ridiculous. It is unacceptable. There is no way these Members oversight if they are running after governors to give them support. These people are on the ground. They are the ones who are facing the challenges on the ground where members of public are turning to them for school fees, medical assistance and many other things, yet they are beggars running after the governors whom they should actually oversight. To some extent, the budget currently allocated to them, the governors and the speakers collude and steal the money from county assembly. This particular Bill will solve that problem if it be assented to. I know MCAs of my county assembly have been crying about this. I hope this will be a solution to the problems, which also affect Kenyans. As Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale said that in a public baraza, the best they can do is to say that the governors are doing well even when they are doing zero on the ground. They have really embarrassed us and members of the public. When they are supposed to carry out their oversight role, the best they do is to say that the Senate is 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": 1495001,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1495001/?format=api",
"text_counter": 127,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Dullo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13125,
"legal_name": "Dullo Fatuma Adan",
"slug": "dullo-fatuma-adan"
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"content": "doing their work. Which work are they doing apart from clapping for the governors, begging and praising them? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I pray and urge MCAs if this will be a solution to their problem; they also come up with a solution which is gracious to this country. Let it solve the problem of embezzlement of funds in our counties. Today in the CPAC meeting and I think this matter should also come to the House, there is a trend that has been developed by governors. They are now refusing to appear before all the committees of the House. They are taking the queue one after the other. We are becoming irrelevant because they are disrespectful. I remember being told the day before yesterday a governor - I will be specific to the Governor of Isiolo County - when he was told that his County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) are not gender balanced, he agreed. He then went ahead to ask what was going to be done to him if he did not balance the gender of his CECMs. That is where we have reached. People no longer care about the laws in this country. This House must wake up. We must have a solution to the challenges we face in our counties. They disregard the laws in this country. I think laws are there to regulate. However, you will find somebody saying that they do not care what the law says and do what they want. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said earlier, on record, as far as I am concerned, this House is irrelevant and that is what governors believe. I hope we are going to find a solution to this problem. I thank you."
}
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}