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{
    "id": 1065504,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1065504/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 133,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "The other issue is about the Ward Development Fund. The Ward Development Fund is very important. There are members of county assemblies who never see eye-to-eye with governors. As a result, their wards have been marginalised. With this proposal, we are very sure that every ward in every county will access some minimum resources to develop it. This is also applicable to the National Government-Constituencies Development Fund. There are so many cases against the NG-CDF. People have gone to court claiming that the NG- CDF is unconstitutional. Now that we are pushing for the NG-CDF to be part of the Constitution in Clause 52 of the Bill, nobody will go to court claiming that the NG-CDF is unconstitutional. I still believe, as a Kenyan, that the NG-CDF still remains the most effective fund in terms of ensuring that Kenyans get value for money for all development projects and programmes. I urge Members to support this so that the NG-CDF becomes part of our Constitution and it continues helping our people. Let me talk about the politics around this Bill. There is the issue of gender equality. We have been told that there will be an additional 70 slots to take care of gender issues. I do not agree with the statement about equality of the vote. That means that the focus will be on population. The Constitution is very clear. Even as you create constituencies, there are other factors which must be considered such as geographical area which are in the Constitution. When you only talk about equality of the vote, we are being unfair to areas like where I come from. We are not very many in terms of numbers, but we have very huge tracts of land which cannot be ignored. If you are to deliver development in such an area, you require more resources in terms of logistics. I also do not agree with the Second Schedule. I have looked at it and analysed it statistically. I must confirm that there is no scientific method which was used to come up with that schedule for additional constituencies. Kitui County has a population of 1.136 million. We did not even get a single additional constituency. We will pass this Bill, but it is the IEBC that should do the delimitation in a scientific manner without ignoring any part. Kitui County is very big. We have always demanded for an additional county and we will continue to do so. We need that county for our people to get services effectively. As I conclude, there are good and bad things in this Bill. The issue is checking whether it is 80 per cent bad and 20 per cent good. Depending on that, we will then tell our people how to vote for the Bill. We will insist that the bad is addressed at the right time, so that our people also benefit. With those many remarks, because I can see time is becoming an issue…"
}