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{
    "id": 1134138,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1134138/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 118,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Ledama",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "Secondly, the National Treasury and the Ministry of Health should develop a framework to allow for pending bills to be cleared as a first charge of accounts. That is the principle in accounting and I am sure the Majority Whip will tell you the same. If you have a pending bill, it should form the first charge on your accounts. Our pending bills have grown tremendously. I think to a figure of about Kshs120 billion. How are we going to clear that? We are killing businesses. When we come up with a budget, let us not just build the English. We should demystify what it means for us to have a budget that can help our economies grow. The other important thing is that the Ministry of Health and county governments should ensure that a framework is developed to take care of the 5,500 health workers who are employed on contract under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme because this BPS is silent on that. It does not tell us what will happen. You are telling us you want to achieve the universal healthcare and ensure that, eventually, you provide healthcare to every citizen in this country. However, you are not telling us how you are going to protect the 5,500 workers who were employed on contract. We know what happened this year in the health sector. For example, there are the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) workers who were on contract. When their contracts expired, they were not renewed. Even though the law is presumptive in the sense that if a contract is not renewed, you become permanent and pensionable, those people were sent home. What country are we living in? It is time we asked ourselves tough questions. We talked about the issue of concurrence of Bills. Today, I am aware that there is a Huduma Bill in the National Assembly, but I am not sure whether the National Assembly sought concurrence. Even the Court of Appeal overruled the decision of the former Supreme Court, still, the National Assembly can just come up with legislations, pass them and send to the President for assent. We should not allow the Huduma Bill to be sent to the President for assent when it literally renders the immigration services as another department. We need to be pragmatic and progressive. With such kind of BPS that seeks to claw back devolution, there is no progression at all. It is like we are telling Kenyans that they do not know anything because we can do anything we want. It is like the national Government is the Alpha and the Omega, yet we talk about devolution. That is something that ought to come to an end. There are also special funds, which should be allocated to the establishment of cancer centres in Meru and Kakamega counties as proposed is the BPS. We need to look at the entire country. Even though we cannot have equality, there is some form of equity that can help us."
}