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{
    "id": 1134239,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1134239/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 45,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I think I was referring to two Senators who come from the Kalenjin land. That is why I said the distinguished Senators from the Kalenjin nation should behave like parliamentarians, and not like they are at Kimalel goat auction because that is what the two Senators were doing. Anyway, back to the point that I was prosecuting just before we went for lunch. I was speaking of the bewilderment and the shock that many of us got as we observed what was happening at the Namanga border. We were informed to our utter shock by officers manning that border station that the norm nowadays is that we have hundreds of lorries lining up from Tanzania bringing in goods to Kenya, but nothing completely leaves Kenya. Mr. Speaker, Sir, that officer did mention that the only thing that they see leaving from Kenya to Tanzania is the Brookside milk and you know the connection therein as far as they are able to secure such deals. It is unfortunate and it points out to the mismanagement that we have made of our economy. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I did mention in the BPS, there is a desire to invest in huge capital intensive infrastructure projects whose motivation is the 10 per cent kickback that many of these mandarins are actually chasing. I cited the example of the 50 new Level 3 Hospitals that are being proposed as part of what will be built at a whooping cost of close to Kshs10 billion. We need to ask ourselves: What is the evaluation criteria? How did they arrive at the figure 50? Mr. Speaker, Sir, you are well aware that for the last two terms of this House of Parliament, the Ministry of Health is one of those very notorious Ministries that continued to retain colossal amounts of funds that should have otherwise been devolved to our counties, for our county governments to better manage the health function. However, for purposes of controlling procurement and ensuring that the mandarins in both the National Treasury and Afya House get kickbacks, they retain this money as a pool and dish it out in different parts of the country; whether they need or they do not need it. What assessment has been done? What has been done to assess that, for example, Kitui County needs X number of Level 3 Hospitals? Perhaps, in their health priorities that is not what they need. It varies from what Bungoma County needs and the same can be said of all the 46 counties. Therefore, this centralist attitude that continues to be seen even in our budget is something that we need to move away from. As a Committee we have made our statements that come the time where we shall be handling the division of revenue and county allocation of revenue act until we are satisfied that there is need for these 50 new Level 3 hospitals and the counties where these distributions will be given. Sen. Wetangula has mentioned a number of times on this Floor how certain people think of the map of Kenya as revolving around the districts or provinces where"
}