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{
    "id": 1123820,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1123820/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 237,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "million. That way, they will do things that make sense, rather than things that only enhance our political positions. Another one is roads. We know that the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) does roads in our counties. It is the KeRRA roads that the county governments sometimes claim to have done. This is the sole reason why governors went to court when the Senate said it wanted accountability on the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) because they are doing a lot of monkey games there. Can we sit down and mark our roads, so that we know the roads that will be handled by governors, Members of the National Assembly and the county governments through the county commissioners? The other agenda will be to consider and advise on issues of concern that may require cooperation, consultation and coordination between the two levels of government. I have always reflected on some of the battles that we put up in this House. We spent a lot of energy on the revenue formula. You will find Senators fighting for their counties, yet governors sit clueless and just watch. Many a times, we come here to fight for additional revenue for county governments but the governors just sit back and wait to see whether we are going to be successful. Today, governors are demanding Kshs700 billion. They expect the Senate will join the bandwagon and say let us give governors Kshs700 billion. Without consulting us, they go to the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) and make those demands then they come and expect that Senators are robots that are just going to support them to get Kshs700 billion. That becomes a forum for a Senator to get a brief from their governor, so that by the time we come here, we all have the same view. I wish the Senator for Nyamira was here. I think he is still around. Nyamira County deserves a proper county headquarters. When we gave money as conditional grants to Tharaka Nithi, Isiolo, Lamu and a few other counties, Nyamira was in the “Class B” or the second tier counties that were supposed to benefit from an allocation for county headquarters but that has not happened. Sen. Omogeni has been pushing this agenda solely. He does not seem to have the backing of his county government because they county government prefers to build the county headquarters. That way, there is a better margin for something to go into the pocket. I do recall back then, the Senator for Tharaka Nithi, Sen. (Prof.) Kindiki, made a spirited fight to ensure that they got county headquarters. Today, when you go to oversight the buildings and the progress, you are slapped with a court order telling you that it is not Senate’s business to oversight conditional grants, yet we are the ones who fought for allocation of those funds. That is shameful! It is shifting goalposts because when the counties need money, they need the Senate and when the Senate requires an answer on how the money has been utilized, they run to court to get court orders. I am glad because I can see the Senator for Samburu here. When we arrived at the marginalization policy that we have, which the Senator for Nairobi City disagrees with and he has all the right, but did he sit with Hon. Sonko? Did Hon. Sonko conceptualize and understand that this marginalization policy is not taking care of pockets of marginalization within Nairobi? Probably it was beyond his pay grade."
}