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{
"id": 1130268,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1130268/?format=api",
"text_counter": 107,
"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": "success of the county structures, we followed our accelerated devolution of functions with two critical drivers. One, we undertook a massive transfer of highly skilled civil servants from the national government to the county governments. This battery of highly trained personnel was meant to give the county governments a head start. They did so in terms of setting up the county public services, including their operating structures and systems. Two, within the first year of my tenure, my administration increased the equitable share allocation to county governments from the constitutionally mandated 15 per cent to 32 per cent. This was a doubling of the allocation in support of the execution of the devolved dream. We did this because we understood and appreciated that devolution of functions without devolving of funding was an exercise in futility. Today, the national Government has disbursed approximately Ksh2.44 trillion to county governments over the last eight years. The aggregate amount that will have been disbursed to the counties for the next financial year is, therefore, projected to surpass the Ksh.3 trillion mark. In other words, this percolation of resources changed the economic fundamentals at the county level. It has fast tracked the embedding of devolved functions in eight years. Evidence abounds on this, but allow me to give a few examples. Accelerated devolution has, for instance, delivered shoes with a magical label “Made by Kitui County, Kenya” and given Makueni County its first mango processing plant. Makueni County received Ksh110 million from the Devolution Advice and Support Programme. This money supported the processing plant and benefitted 12,000 mango farmers by creating value addition. The plant is now buying one mango at Kshs15 from farmers who previously sold their produce in the open market place at Kshs5 at the very best price or more often than not, left the mangos to rot away. Their income has grown ten-fold and provided ground for their farming undertakings to take-off. Makueni is also on record as being one of the counties with a capacity to manufacture its own oxygen, especially in the context of COVID-19. Their Universal Healthcare Insurance Scheme, known as Makueni Care is also a good example. Another example of county innovation is in Kajiado. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the county looked for a way of distributing food to hungry members of its populace. Through an integrated system dubbed M-Riziki, which virtually linked financiers and beneficiaries, 30,000 households of the population were able to receive food using the system in 2020. M-Riziki saved the county the logistical nightmare of transportation. The digital platform also ensured that shopkeepers who partnered with the county to provide goods worth Ksh1,500 per person remained in business during the COVID-19 duress. This innovative approach to distributing relief food closed off avenues of corruption and created efficient ways of delivering services to the population. Hon. Members, there are many more testimonies on how accelerating the formation of county structures and supporting them with skilled personnel, resources and legislation has embedded devolution in the last eight years. Once sleepy towns across the country have now been roared into life, driving not just grand infrastructure developments, but also tangible increases in household incomes of ordinary Kenyans. As devolution takes root, and as an affirmation of the equitable development we continue to enjoy, and in keeping with the resolution of the Senate, I will tomorrow, 1st December, 2021, have the high privilege of conferring on Nakuru Municipality with City Status. Nakuru City will join Kisumu, Mombasa, and Nairobi as cities. With a reputation as East Africa‟s cleanest town, all of Kenya looks forward to Nakuru City growing by leaps and bounds."
}