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{
    "id": 1015345,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1015345/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 160,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kathiani, WDM-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Robert Mbui",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1750,
        "legal_name": "Robert Mbui",
        "slug": "robert-mbui"
    },
    "content": "First, I want to thank God for touching the hearts of those Senators so that the circus that they have treated this country for a very long time has finally come to an end. In fact, the Bible talks about the story of Saul who went and got a flash of light and then he suddenly became Paul. I think that is what happened to them. There are some very basic areas of disagreements that the Senators had when they were discussing this formula. Apparently, as my leader has ably put it, they really did not look at the criteria properly. They were interested in the personalisation of these issues. That is why one of the things they were talking about continuously was that some counties were gaining and others losing. At the end of it all, the proposal that we have here is a situation where no county loses. But if the law allows that a formula that moves with the changing times must be created every five years, we cannot be personalising and talking about “my county is gaining” or “my county is losing”. That is not really the basis under the Constitution. There was, of course, the issue of marginalised communities. That has always been an issue. I think the Constitution 2010 tried to address that matter with the Equalization Fund which, unfortunately, as we are aware, has not been actualized. I will not talk about the formula because my leader has ably unpacked it and explained to us critically what is contained there. But allow me to also talk about some of the missing services. Members have talked about water and electricity. There is one aspect of a devolved function of education which is education in lower levels of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) and also polytechnics. It is important because those are some of the services that needed to be addressed. How come this whole formula does not consider those aspects which are devolved to the counties? When they are sharing monies, why would they forget the education of those young children? Why would they forget the education of those children that have finished Form IV and are going to polytechnics? They are getting skills for the future. I think it is important that these things be looked into very seriously. On the matter of fiscal discipline which the Senate has unfortunately removed, Article 203(e) talks about the criterion that is used in determining equitable share. It says that fiscal capacity and efficiency of county governments should be one of the criteria that are used. That is the fiscal capacity and efficiency of county governments. If we remove the fiscal discipline element, we are basically going against the Constitution. It is one of those parameters that must be considered when this County Allocation of Revenue Bill is being addressed. I want to talk about the amount of money, the Kshs370 billion, which is in our Order Paper and we have addressed. We have passed a Division of Revenue Bill in this House. It talks about Kshs316.5 billion. I do not know where the Kshs370 billion is coming from. Is it an advance so that we are going to give Kshs370 billion next year; when we pass the Division of Revenue Bill? I believe that this House will have to debate and agree. It will also depend very much on the amount of money that will be available for sharing. So, I think the fact that we are discussing monies which we do not have is totally unfortunate. You know we have this situation of Covid-19. You do not know exactly what it will do to this nation by that time. So, it is very important to consider that. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, finally, I want to talk about the problems we are having in the understanding of our Constitution. Article 95 has given us the responsibility of determining the allocation of revenue between the two levels of Government. Then, Article 96(3) gives the Senate the responsibility of determining the allocation of national revenue among counties as provided under Article 217. That is why you will find that this House, as we are debating this Motion, will not try to make amendments. It is because we believe that, that is a responsibility that has been given to the Senate. Why is it that every year when we pass the Division of Revenue Bill, The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}