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{
    "id": 1127005,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1127005/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 484,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kinangop, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Zachary Thuku",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13380,
        "legal_name": "Zachary Kwenya Thuku",
        "slug": "zachary-kwenya-thuku"
    },
    "content": "county governments do not have, as priority, conditional grants by development partners? Do we have a mechanism where the county assembly or county governments can reallocate the money that is meant for the same programmes? If we leave it as it is, we will allow our development partners, with all due respect, and the Government, to dictate where the money will go. That has a direct impact on the independence of county governments. County governments should be autonomous. One of the reasons why county governments are not functional - and I am sorry to use the words not functional - is because they are at the mercy of the national Government. Today, many county governments have not received their first quarter allocations. They delay over and over so that whenever the money is released by the National Treasury, there is already a crisis. That is why there is an outcry everywhere that county governments are not functional. However, if you dig deeper, you will find that it is not a conspiracy by governors not to perform. There is some frustration that comes from the Treasury. Even as I support this Bill with proposed amendments, my prayer is that the National Treasury releases money to county governments as and when required, so that programmes can run. At times, we beat them so hard when we need services like water, good roads, and agricultural support, but they do not have money in their coffers. The money that is released is just for recurrent expenditure. As Parliament, we need to assert ourselves because our people are in county governments and that is where services are needed. For devolution to work, there must be concerted efforts by this House to make sure that money gets to the counties as and when they are supposed to. When there is delay, it becomes a big issue for governors to perform, yet everybody castigates them as non-performers. There cannot be a conspiracy in the whole country that governors do not want to work. We know what happens even when we want to implement our National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) projects. If our money is delayed, we cannot move ahead. Think of a whole county government where there are so many workers and programmes such as healthcare. If money is not availed as and when it is required, we expect the crisis that we face every day. There is also the issue of education. Village polytechnics are under the purview of county governments. Their money is allocated to county governments as conditional grants by the Government for capitation. At times, county governments may have allocated money from their own coffers. When money is sent by the national Government, it becomes an issue because the money cannot be absorbed since the programmes that they are trying to facilitate are already catered for by county governments. The conditional grant comes in late. Since these are the kind of audit questions that they get every other time, why do we not just look at this Bill closely, so that we can come up with a mechanism to reallocate money and have the same up-scaled to the Budget Office to be approved, so that counties can run efficiently? I support the Bill because it is timely and we need it. However, I will bring some amendments."
}