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{
    "id": 1245430,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1245430/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 144,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "since 2013 carrying a chair. How can we allow that, yet we are proud to take salaries as Senators? Therefore, Sen. Ali Roba, we will go down in history as having failed devolution if we allow this practice to continue. I will tell you for a fact because you have been a county governor. The first set of governors like yourself, our Speaker and many others keenly observed these provisions of the law and kept it even below 30 per cent for many of these counties. However, subsequent county governments especially the counties that have had the unfortunate incident of having more than two governors at this particular time where a governor lost in 2013 and, therefore, another one came and in 2017 a new one also came. That is where this problem begins. The Senate must address itself to this issue. Pointing out to County Assemblies on this provision is not enough. We must tell our governors to stop misleading the country. The infamous argument before this House over the years has been that we picked staffers from defunct Municipal Councils. I agree with some of them when they say that. However, we know many of those staffers have already retired. However, while they retire, they open up. If you look at the amount that used to be earned by staffers of the defunct municipalities, it is almost double or triple what the ordinary staffers earn presently. People are hired for amounts that range between Kshs.30,000 and Kshs50,000. However, when you check the drivers that were hired at that time because they were smaller units and the tools of governance were not as strong as they are today, then you will find that somebody cheekily looks at and says, driver so and so has retired. Their salary used to be Kshs120, 000. So, what do you do? Instead of filling that position with one driver, you pick six of them and pay them Kshs20, 000 each because you are trying to think that I have all these supporters that I promised to give them employment. Employment can equally be an impediment to development. If you take money that was meant to benefit an entire village through a road, medicine to their dispensaries, and Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) class and use it to hire four or five people only from that village, have you developed it? You have denied the people of an entire village development opportunities. I, therefore, request Members of the Budget and Finance Committee including Sen. Faki who is a lawyer. You know that this is possible. Please lead this House in calling our Counties to order. Let each Governor file a plan with the Senate. That is why you are the Governor and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Unfortunately, we have not been diligent as Senators. You need to know as Senator for Siaya and Kitui what percentage of my budget is going to development and to recurrent expenditure. Once you know that, expect your Governor to file in this House a plan so that you know that by 2027, we have forced our counties to spend in excess of 65 per cent in development activities. Otherwise, we will have simply turned County Governors into Pay Master Generals. There are county governments that are spending 50 per cent on recurrent and 50 per cent on development or even more. That is unfortunate. We are failing as the Senate. I am informed. That is really unfortunate. We are failing as Senate. I expect that the Committee will be able to lead us to that decision."
}