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{
    "id": 1166002,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1166002/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 184,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. If you look at many of our counties, we only talk about revenue allocation but do not talk about revenue generation. We might soon need a commission of revenue generation because everybody has focused on how to divide the cake or pie but no one is preoccupied with how to bake a bigger case for this country. If that was the case, we would never have had the fights we had in this House and our counties would be very productive. In fact, Nairobi County would be giving other counties resources. The fourth principle is sub-national borrowing. That is how counties can be guaranteed. That is in Chapter 12 of our Constitution. For you to take any instrument like a loan, a county must be guaranteed by the national Government. County governments have not been creative. The first county where I have seen some thinking around that has been Laikipia County where governor Nderitu was recently talking about an infrastructure bond or something like that. That is where our counties need to get to. If you look at what we need to do in Nairobi City County, there is many infrastructural gaps that need to be sorted including the mass transit system, we need a proper rail system and an overhaul of our sewerage and water system, to redo the pipes and be put in the latest technology. Those things can cost around Kshs150 billion, but Nairobi cannot afford that. I am glad that as the Senator of Nairobi and I made sure that we moved from Kshs15 billion to Kshs19 billion. However, if we focus on that, it will take us many years to get to that level. We need creative ways of packaging bonds, doing public/private partnerships and looking at the resources within the county to be able to get a block lump-sum figure of Kshs200 billion to sort out all the infrastructural needs in this City, then you get a proper payment period by guaranteeing the income of the revenue that Nairobi is supposed to get in the next 20 years. That is the kind of thinking that we need to transform devolution and our counties. The Kshs7 billion that Homa Bay County receives will in no way transform Homa Bay; it will just keep it going. The money that Kisumu County gets will keep it going. You will just be paying salaries. My wage bill in Nairobi is close to Kshs18 billion per year. The money we give them from here is just for paying salaries."
}