Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1245488,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1245488/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "loopholes where more than 50 per cent of collections go to pockets of the individuals who collect these monies. A lot of effort needs to be put so that these loopholes are plugged and counties have sufficient money to operate even when the national Government does not disburse money as is the position currently. There were functions that were devolved by the Constitution but 10 years down the line, these functions are still being performed and their resources retained by the national Government. This is a serious issue because provisions of the Constitution are being violated. If it is because counties have not developed the capacity to handle some of these functions, that capacity was supposed to be developed with the assistance of the national Government. It was the national Government to assist counties to develop those capacities so that they can effectively handle those functions. Madam Temporary Speaker, 10 years down the line, I cannot believe that the Ministry of Roads and Transport is still holding on to the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) and Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA). These are obviously devolved functions because KURA is the one that deals with the roads in towns, urban areas and municipalities. Why should those functions be retained in the Ministry? I know the reason is corruption. There are people who know that when they hold those funds, then they have some leverage to get some benefits from them and therefore, they do not want to let go and these functions under the Ministry. The same applies to KeRRA. Madam Temporary Speaker, these are just two examples but there are several others, particularly in the health sector. They have a lot of functions which the Ministry of Health is still holding on to, including funds to the counties. This needs to be released. My county is being given some paltry increment and this is because we did not do a good job in allocating more money to the counties. I hope that in the next allocation, our Assembly will be more alert to the fact that we need to defend devolution, we need not come here to defend the national Government. We need to allocate more money to our counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, on holding of funds for the county assemblies by the county executives. The county assemblies need to have a clear line for their funds to be allocated to them. This dependency on the county executive is making them subservient. To speak more bluntly, it is to disable them from oversighting the counties effectively. The Senate should think of a way of creating clear budget lines for the assemblies and for the executives. From my experience, the county assemblies are better paymasters to their suppliers than the county executives. I do not know the reasons, but it is high time we considered separating the budgets of the county assemblies from those of the county executives; so that assemblies can effectively oversight executives without depending on them for allocation of funds. Madam Temporary Speaker, with those few remarks, I support this Bill on behalf of my County and I hope these remarks will be taken seriously in the next allocation for counties. Thank you."
}