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{
    "id": 1071574,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1071574/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 196,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Legal affairs and Human Rights Committee on the Building Bridges Initiative there were a few abstentions. Hon. Junet Mohamed, Hon. Opondo Kaluma and a few others did not sign. However, in this case, all the 11 Members of this Committee signed the Report. When you establish a Committee to investigate the allegations and give them resources, time and the best legal advice, and they come back and tell us that allegations are substantiated, we need to take it seriously. However, this Committee has brought to us what I would call a poisoned chalice. When you want to kill a cow, you go for the jugular. You do not cut the leg hoping that by cutting the leg it will bleed to death. There were 17 allegations and two charges. Out of the 17 allegations one is substantiated and the others are not. This is cutting the leg of a cow for it to bleed to death. It is not going for the jugular. What we have seen in counties, and our collective experience with county governments, is that there is so much graft in county government’s procurement departments. I must congratulate the County Assembly because they took the bold action of deciding this matter at their local level and bringing it to the Senate. I encourage County Assemblies across the nation that there is no Governor who is above the law. There is no governor who cannot be impeached or brought to the Senate. The County Assembly had charges relating to procurement and the Committee found them unsubstantiated. There were allegations relating to corruption and were found unsubstantiated. There were some very interesting allegations relating to the office of the first lady, which is a stranger in law. When you go to all these county governments, you will find people going by the names of ‘first lady’. That is absolute hogwash. I do not see anywhere in the County Governments Act or any of the relevant pieces of statute where you have someone called a first lady to be utilising county resources and blackmailing and intimidating officers in county governments. I like the way the Chair of the Committee said it; that you cannot stop a Governor from being romantic and intimate with the wife. Be romantic and intimate in your bedroom and house, but not within the precincts of the county government, where you are the Chief Executive Officer. The reason I say that we are trying to bleed the cow to death by cutting its leg is because the focus of the charges or allegations have been on the health sector. Nothing is more important than the health sector to county governments because this is one of the most important functions, leave alone roads. If you build roads and your people are dying, then you are doing nonsense. You are not doing anything of value to your people. If we focus properly on the health sector, 47 governors plus one President would be impeached today. If there is someone who has failed to deliver health services to the people of the Republic of Kenya in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic - and we have reports from the Health Committee – it is the Head of State and his bureaucrats. If you look at our respective counties, every county--- Right now, the Committee on Health Committee is looking at COVID-19 expenditure for each of the 47 county governments. There is no single county government that has justified its expenditure of"
}