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{
    "id": 1007015,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1007015/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 507,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nairobi CWR, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Esther Passaris",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12475,
        "legal_name": "Esther Passaris",
        "slug": "esther-passaris"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I actually did not want to contribute to this Motion; I wanted to contribute to the next one. In as far as the Senate and the National Assembly are concerned, we have had a back and forth relationship. It is increasingly becoming obvious that legislators are in the National Assembly and not in the Senate. Every time the Senate passes a Bill, I think it would be nice and prudent for them to try and involve our Committees so that, by the time it comes to the National Assembly, we are able to synergize and make sure that we all serve the people. The Senate has responsibilities in as far as the counties are concerned. We know that there are so many issues in the counties. When COVID-19 was confirmed in the country, the Senate was very quick to rush and create a COVID-19 taskforce. There is so much duplication. The Senate seems to overstep what the National Assembly has to do. You find that the Cabinet Secretaries are being called by both the Senate and the National Assembly and then there is total confusion. If the National Assembly focused on strengthening and empowering county governments, we would be in a better position to ensure that devolution is a success. Right now, we have so many challenges in devolution and so much confusion in as far as how the Senate is handling devolution. The Government has allocated Kshs5 billion to county governments to boost their response to COVID-19 and ensure they deliver on Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Quite a number of counties have not been able to get more than 10 or 15 beds. With the rising cases of COVID-19, we are actually in a crisis. When you think of devolution, the whole idea was to make sure that in the grassroots, we end up uplifting people’s lives. Right now with COVID-19, we are going to see drastic increase in poverty because we have not been able to address what the Senate should do in terms of protecting county governments. There is this talk right now about women representatives being taken to the Senate. Taking women representatives to the Senate because we work in the counties makes a lot of sense but, at the end of the day, we should not lose the gains that we have in the National Assembly. We should also be encouraging the various political parties to ensure that the National Assembly brings women who are elected by nominating them to vie, and not ensuring that that we end up with more nominated women in Parliament and thus seeing women as a burden. All in all, we respect and appreciate what the Senate does. There is need to focus clearly on trying to empower the county governments to enable them to deliver on the various devolved functions. What they are trying to do in terms of legislation and oversight is duplication which makes it very difficult for us to attain what we want. We are exhausting the Executive by requiring Cabinet Secretaries to come to both Houses of Parliament to answer same questions. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker."
}