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{
    "id": 1147646,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1147646/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 271,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "The issue at hand today is something that has affected so many Kenyans. Many Kenyans have paid the price. They have committed suicide because the county governments and even the national Government have not paid them. When you have regulations, they have to go hand in hand with the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. If they do not go hand in hand, then I completely support the idea of nullifying them. If county governments require to withdraw money from the consolidated fund. They require the approval of the Controller of Budget (CoB) and send the list of all the pending bills, why should they not pay? Any regulations that have been set out should be made very clear that if the county governments or national Government request for payments for certain products or goods in the development budget or any activity that the county governments carry out and they do not comply with regulations which are set out, they should be punished. We will not have a problem with pending bills. Pending bills have continued creating many problems. In the first place, when you know very well that it is “first in, first out”, there is absolutely no reason for having pending bills. As I support this Report from the Committee on Delegated Legislation, I continue re-emphasizing on the importance of at least any regulations that are passed in this House to comply with the rule of law. There is no reason for us to spend most of our time drafting legislation and coming up with regulations, which do not go hand in hand. I support one of the observations that was made by the Committee, which I will read so that I can summarize. It says – “The regulations contained conflicting timelines with the existing statute, Regulation 22 (3), on the submissions of quarterly reports to the COB by the fifteenth day after the end of each quarter contradicts Section 83(3) and (5) of the PFM Act 2012 which requires Ministries, State Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to submit to the National Treasury and a copy to the COB the quarterly report on the fifteenth day after the end of every quarter.” If these things were going hand in hand with the main statute, then we would not have a problem of pending bills. When we go into the next Parliament, it would be important that this Parliament to go on record as having put some sanity on the issue of pending bills. I thank you for allowing culture to continue prevailing. I call upon all the Maasai people and the pastoralist community to see where the country is moving. We have had many problems. The only government which is going to assist us is the one going to be formed by the Rt. hon. Raila Amollo Odinga. This is because he will not support any monkey business where county Governments and State Departments are not paying their pending bills. We need to learn to live within our means. When we come up with proper regulations that go hand in with the PFM Act; we will have a beautiful country. I support."
}