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{
    "id": 1130266,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1130266/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 105,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta",
    "speaker_title": "His Excellency the President",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 168,
        "legal_name": "Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta",
        "slug": "uhuru-kenyatta"
    },
    "content": "In the eight years, we have connected 1.7 million more households than Egypt. Similarly, we have connected as many households as South Africa and Nigeria combined during the eight years of my administration. In real terms, only 2.3 million households had been connected to power when I took over in 2013. In eight years, we have tripled this number by connecting an extra 6.3 million households. Put differently, and guided by our acceleration model, we have connected approximately 787,500 households every year or an average of 2,000 connections a day since 2013. By any measure, this acceleration is noteworthy. Besides access to electricity, my administration has also embarked on implementing the recommendations of the Presidential Taskforce that established a pathway for reduction of the cost of electricity by 30 per cent by the end of this year. Hon. Speakers, we are tearing down all barriers that deny Kenyans an opportunity to lead a dignified life. Now I turn to devolution and how my administration has used the acceleration framework to multiply the economic fundamentals of the counties. As the first President to implement the 2010 Constitution, the task of rolling-out devolution fell squarely on me. Although the letter of the Constitution provided for a phased approach to the devolution of functions to counties, the spirit of the Constitution suggested an urgent “big bang” approach in creating the devolved structures. This meant giving county government‟s political, administrative and financial autonomy all at once. We were to do this without the luxury of a strategy dry run to determine whether this “big bang” approach would work. Fortunately, Article 187 of the Constitution gave us three years to execute this constitutional instruction. While three years was a fair period to achieve the “big bang” effect of transferring functions to fragile counties, my administration chose an even bolder path. Driven by our acceleration doctrine, we chose to transfer functions to the county structures in one year instead of the constitutional threshold of three year, and because we were committed to the"
}