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{
"id": 1057717,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1057717/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Nyaribari Chache, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Richard Tong’i",
"speaker": {
"id": 2611,
"legal_name": "Richard Nyagaka Tongi",
"slug": "richard-nyagaka-tongi"
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"content": "the county level now that the country has taken the devolution route. If we can fix and get it right at the county levels, I am sure the country will be a better place to live in. A great servant of this world, Mother Theresa once said, “If each of us would only sweep our own doorsteps, the whole world would be clean”. If our counties get it right and do their best in terms of service delivery, then the country will be a very good place to live in. We will have eliminated complaints that the national Government has not delivered and blame games will be a thing of the past. When that happens, one of the ways to operationalise this Bill will be public participation. If they want to pass any law, they must involve the public by way of notice of the pending business in their mother tongues. I listened to Millie Odhiambo, and I am very concerned about the boy child. That is Amariba Secondary School to be precise. When we were assessing the number of children enrolled in the school, 60 per cent were girls and 40 per cent were boys. That begs the question where the boys are and what we are doing to empower them. When the girls are of age to get married, where will be the boys to marry them? If we do not prepare the boys now, they will be afraid of the girls. This Bill is attempting to address the inequalities we have at the county level. I am sure we will do a lot more. As counties come up with laws to govern them, they must look at the bigger picture. Some counties are too small to have restrictive laws because we trade across counties. I would encourage a situation where we have amalgamated counties that will sit down to agree on the laws that will govern all of them, so that they do not shoot themselves on the foot by making laws that will limit how they trade and partner with their neighbouring counties. Kisii County, for example, is known for bananas among other fruits. It is also known for avocadoes that grow effortlessly. If we do not develop laws to govern sale of farm produce, we will have hurt its people without planning to do so. As we support this Bill, we need to encourage counties to do it and do it well. I will be happy if we get to the point where we have a model like what we have in the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) that, by the time money leaves the Treasury going to the counties, we all know what that money is going to do even if it is not 100 per cent. If we know what 50 per cent of the money is going to do, the public will be empowered to know how their money is spent. As it is, that is at the whims of the governors and counties leadership to decide how much they are going to put into development. It is up to them to decide where the money will go. If you get a county like Kisii that has nine constituencies, the governor can decide to take money to one side of the county. That will leave the rest of the constituencies suffering. If these laws can be made and involve all constituencies ahead of time before receiving the money, that will be a major step in addressing the misuse of money that we have at the county level, thus curtailing corruption that is said to be at the county level. We cannot keep whining by saying that things do not work at the counties and yet we are not doing anything about it. I am grateful that the BBI Bill is attempting to address the issue of management at the ward level. The five per cent money that will be allocated at the ward level will somehow attempt to bring equity on matters of development. Five percent of, for example, 100 million divided by the number of wards that could be 20, you will only have two million. It is not enough compared to the kind of money that goes to the counties. It is a good start but, certainly, it is not enough to address the challenges that we have at the county level. We must deliberately go out of our way to make sure that we have a way of ensuring the projects are known. By opening data in a computer, we should know, for example, what projects are being undertaken in Meru. By a click of a button, we can tell the projects that are being undertaken by the Nairobi County Government. That way, we will be able to address the issues we are having today. If people wanted to know about the NG-CDF projects in my constituency today, they do not need to see me. All they need to do is to 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."
}