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{
    "id": 1063289,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1063289/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 281,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "I am the Chairperson of the Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations and one of the issues that we want to put on the table is that time is ripe for a national budget and economic conference. In that conference, the national Government and the county government can have a convergence of budget priorities. A lot of the county fiscal strategy papers and the resulting budget were done on business as usual basis. Covid-19 has had a very biting impact on small businesses and it has disrupted livelihoods across counties. Kenya is a unitary state and the government, at all levels, should look at budget priorities, across all the counties and across the national Government, and ensure that bulk of our budget goes towards health and reigniting the informal sector. This is an issue that we should address. I know that we have other priorities in this country, like the constitutional review, but a national economic and budget conference is extremely important. That will help us stop a further wastage on the Kshs50 billion that we are sending to the counties. Sen. Cherargei has talked about the conditional grants. We had made a proposal that the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) should not be commingled with equitable share. Previously, it was easier to oversight those funds when it came as a conditional grant. In one of our meetings with the COG, we noted that they were also not decided as to whether RMLF should be part of the equitable share or whether it should remain as a conditional grant. Be that as it may, I am still glad that these money is going to the counties. I just want to urge the county assemblies that the funds that were previously going into maintenance of roads and road networks in the counties should be clearly delineated and proper accountability mechanism should be put in place. We have, again, increased the allocation to the Managed Equipment Scheme (MES) by Kshs1 billion in this Division of Revenue Bill. I have seen the Committee on Finance and Budget has tried to do the justification---"
}