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{
    "id": 1123804,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1123804/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 221,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "The role of the Senate is to represent the interests of counties and their governments yet we do not have a forum for a Senator to understand and discuss with the county governments what their interests are. This amendment seeks to cure the issues that were raised by the court on the CDB and to put in place a better framework that shall enable elected leaders from a county to sit, reason, think and plan together. Madam Deputy Speaker before I get into details on how that would be effected, there are two other objectives that we have of this amendment. The second objective is to enhance the corporate governance of County Assembly Service Boards (CASBs). This Senate established the CASBs to provide overall administrative and human resource direction to county assemblies. They were modeled on the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC). We have 47 CASBs, and they are chaired by the speaker, just like the PSC is chaired by the Speaker. Each of these CASBs have a vice-chair, just like in the PSC. Madam Deputy Speaker, there has been a curious occurrence. Whenever the speaker of a county assembly is kicked out of office for whatever reason, the house very quickly puts an acting speaker who then chairs the CASB. The first thing that the acting speaker and acting chair of the CASB does is to sack the employees who are perceived to be loyal to the speaker who has been kicked out of office. This happened very recently in Nyandarua. The speaker was impeached and the next day the deputy speaker, who was not seeing eye to eye with the speaker, convened a meeting of the CASB. The clerk was fired, and all staff who were deemed to be sympathetic to the impeached speaker were kicked out. Madam Deputy Speaker, the CASB should mirror the PSC in that where the chair of the CASB is not there for whatever reason, the acting chair shall be the vice-chair, not the deputy speaker. It would be quite ridiculous if we said that in the absence of Speaker Muturi, my friend, Hon. Moses Cheboi, should chair the PSC. It should be the vice-chair. That lacuna has been there in the law and some county assemblies have abused it. This legislative amendment found a lot of favour in the County Assemblies Forum (CAF) because they thought that gap has been exploited for the wrong reason in the past. Besides enhancing corporate governance of the CASBs, the third objective of this amendment is to mandate county governments to submit an annual performance report to the Senate. The annual performance report is not a new creation; it is there in Section 47 of the County Governments Act. It is just that the Act was so loose. It said that the Executive shall submit the annual performance report to the Assembly. There were no timelines and no prescription on action to be taken."
}