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{
    "id": 1160993,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1160993/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 259,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "We have been told that conditional grants come from development partners who have ensured that the right sectors and locations are targeted. These are targeted funds. If other funds would be stolen, these funds would go to the people. So, stifling this and denying the people of counties the most required services at the frontline is unacceptable. Hon. Senators have highlighted what each of the 35 counties that qualify for conditional grants will get. These grants are aligned to devolved functions. We have always shouted in this House that the resources must follow functions. This is the time we have an opportunity to push resources to the frontline of service provision in counties. This is the one time we have targeted resources that will go into what you have seen listed; from climate resilience to Universal Health Coverage (UCH) to Agriculture. The list is endless, but it faces the people. If you check what my county of Isiolo has done, the number one thing that will come out are conditional grants or donor funded projects that have been implemented. Sometimes, it is very difficult to find resources from the national Government and what they have done. However, when you follow up and juxtaposition, conditional grant or development funds, that have come from external sources with our own internal domestic resourcing, you find a lot of the service provision at the frontlines are actually these types of funds. Now these funds have been stopped or have not been sent to the counties. The framework does not exist. That has now become the excuse for stifling and refusing to send resources down to the counties. This House has the prerogative to make the legislative frameworks for these kinds of mechanisms. What the Senator for Kirinyaga and Chairperson for the Committee on Finance and Budget is challenging this house to do its work. It is ensuring this House does what it takes to unlock the grants. This is a constitutional matter. In our County of Isiolo, for instance, we are one of the universal pilot counties. As soon as the pilot was finished, the grants should have kicked in for the sustainability of this. Without these grants, there is no sustainability. Now people have to go and buy medication, bed sheets and go with buckets. They have to do all these things. Under Article 96 of the Constitution, we are supposed to ensure that county governments are protected and that devolution is sustainable. How will it be sustainable without resources that can be accounted for, at least, through the partners and donors that have given? The national Government cannot purport to be the custodian of conditional grants because the proportion of the grants is so small that even if they removed Kshs7 billion and decided to release what is not being provided, then we can say there is a framework in place. As I stand here in support, it is not for the National Treasury to play politics with the future of our children and the health of our women. Northern Kenya, for instance, is the worst place to give birth in this country and around the world. The women of Isiolo who go to hospitals to give birth, have low chances of survival because there are no resources to look for even the most basic things. We must hold the Executive to account as to why we do not have these funds in the counties. There are many times when there are no frameworks in place, but things have been done through regulations."
}