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{
    "id": 1029527,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1029527/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 255,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "This disease has taught us how helpless and how clueless humanity is. The confusion of our national Government added to the cluelessness of our county governments is a source and sense of embarrassment. The only saving grace is that when you look at stronger economies, we are seeing a similar state of cluelessness and confusion. We must thank God because the fact that you are alive today and have not died out of COVID-19, is not because we are stronger or more intelligent as an African, but by the grace of God. If you are going to lose 10,000 or 5,000 people per day as we are seeing in other countries, we would be having the worst crisis that African economies have ever had. It sometimes makes us believe that there is God in heaven who watches over the weak, particularly the African countries, because we do not have the means to take care of ourselves in this pandemic. Governments have tried, at federal level, national level and sub-national level. The call to centralize health service provision in counties goes against the grain of devolution. This House stood firmly opposing the transfer of functions from Nairobi City County to Nairobi Metropolitan Service. The recentralization of health service delivery is not going to be a solution. The only recentralization I would support is on human resource management. That is why in the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) we are talking of a Health Service Commission. However, we must further decentralize issues to do with procurement. There is no reason why procurement of pharmaceuticals and health products should be sitting at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA). These are some of the problems facing county governments which are making them unable to deliver to the citizens. In as much as we need to deal with this issue, let us strengthen our county governments. Let us give them resources on time, leeway to do procurement and the necessary human resource so that they can respond appropriately. Finally, it is important that as we reflect on these matters, we join other Kenyans in observing---"
}