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{
    "id": 1005137,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1005137/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to weigh in on this Petition brought to you by Sen. (Prof.) Kamar on behalf of the people of Usain Gishu. One of the recurring events in public accounts is the issue of assets; whether they relate to the defunct local authorities; how they were handed over, managed or how new ones are being acquired for the national Government or county governments. This has really been a very thorny issue. It is an area where there is a lot of misuse of resources for very dubious elements that appear. When you see the word “assets” appearing, immediately after the word “assets”, you have liabilities. Here is a situation where the Uasin Gishu County Executive has ostensibly created an asset which will be a liability. This is because the hidden costs of repairing it is beyond the price of the amount that they portend to have spent in acquiring it. My understanding of acquiring assets is that it must be materially useful and add value to the functions of the county government. It must create synergy for creating more development avenues for the county government to thrive and flourish. This is because the resources allocated to these county governments are enormous. Apart from the wage bill and human expenses, they are meant to create development momentum so that these counties can expand and be able to serve people at various sub county levels. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we are now seeing holes being created where resources are sunk. When you look at the development expenditure, they are not even spending the required 30 per cent of the resources on development according to the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. We have seen this element as one big loophole where the money is being sunk. I am saying this with a lot of authority because every single time we have seen governors appear before the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC), one of the issues that comes up is assets and where they are. First of all, they do not even have the register of them. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is the question of governance structures. How on earth can a county executive spend Kshs500 million without telling the taxpayers that, that is how they wish to spend their money? I would rather accept a situation where they went through public participation and they were given a greenlight. We would then say the public did see and understood what they were intending to do and gave them a leeway to accomplish. However, at the total exclusion of the public, they went ahead and acquired this building. It will be interesting of us. As the Petition continues, we will also look at the other side of how they want to handle this particular investment in the assets and the books of the accounts. I support the Petition."
}