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{
    "id": 1012530,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1012530/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "money reaches the villages in terms of county staff or employees, it is money that is devolved and it is going to help promote the economies of our rural communities. Further, Ksh23 billion out of that Ksh79 billion should go to development in line with the PFM Act. How much that would have helped in terms of helping spur economic growth is so much. By the way, the moment economic growth is not spurred at the local level and at any other level, even the projected tax collection cannot be realised. This is because the Treasury, those who are responsible for projecting economic growth and projecting tax collection, base their argument on the possible utilisation of our budgetary provisions. Something that I think we need to look at is whether we still need the GOK conditional grants to the counties – the Ksh23 billion. I think we need to move to a level where the counties are allowed or given opportunity and space to make decisions at that level. If a county is not capable of making decisions well, then it would have problems and the national Government should intervene formally instead of having shareable revenue allocated then we go ahead and start giving conditional grants for functions that are basically devolved. That needs to be looked into. I have no problem with the Ksh30 billion which is grants and loans from our development partners because then those ones have to go to the counties as conditional grants. Hon. Speaker, something else that I would probably want to talk about is matters regarding accountability. We have talked about it many times. However, it appears that the management of our counties led by governors do not listen to us. It is high time we brought legislation to tighten the accountability aspect. This is so that those counties with clearly defined parameters of assessing accountability… As we speak now, we are talking about issues of accountability generally and we have left it to the dictates of the reports of the Auditor-General. We now need to move and come up with legislation that would help in assessing accountability in our counties and with actions to be taken in the event that those counties do not follow the laid down procedures. My final comment on this, because I am sure many Members want to contribute and we want to pass this Bill quickly and go to the Committee of the whole House is on the issue of the Bill that is in the Senate. If the Senate is listening to us, they are doing a lot of injustice to our counties. Let them approve that Bill with amendments including the County Allocation of Revenue Bill so that in the event we are faced with similar circumstances that we have found ourselves in this year, counties would be able to run even as we sort out our political differences, political discussions and mediations. With those remarks, I support."
}