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{
    "id": 1245500,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1245500/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 214,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "We might get daggers being thrown at the Senate by the county governments saying we have reduced their executive ceilings, but it is imperative for the governors to know that CRA relied on the information that they submitted on verifiable staff establishment. Madam Temporary Speaker, as we debate on this Bill, the biggest question for us to ask ourselves is: What we are going to do to ensure that at least these counites get their money on time. I do not believe that any county should have anything to do with pending bills. It behooves this House to build the capacity. I am happy that the ceilings for county assemblies have gone up to build capacity for county governments and budget for the money they have. Most counties have this very bad habit and I think they are copying it from the National Government; that you pass a budget but before the financial year is over you have carried out about four or five supplementary budgets. It is time for us to become realistic and realize that the money that we have is the only one money that we will have in that financial year. One thing I am always happy about and it is good for me to share with our new colleagues in this Parliament is that the last Parliament played a critical role in ensuring that money being sent to county governments will never go down. It will always go up. Although this year the money going to counties went down because of inflation in the country, we tried to some extent to make sure it does not go down below Kshs370 billion. I hope that in a couple of years when we shall review the formula that is relied on by CRA to disburse money--- I know at this point they are looking at different things. Allow me to grab my file. They are looking at different parameters given that they have taken basic equal share to be about 20 percent, population index 18 percent, land area index eight percent, agricultural index, 10 percent, health index 17 percent, road access index, eight percent, urban index, five percent, and poverty index. I hope that now apart from just relying on these, we can go back to the earlier school of thoughts of putting a two percent incentive for accountability. I have noted with great concern and I do not know why the Committee did this that the Committee noted and never checked this with CRA. For instance, the audit Committee meetings have been reduced to four. This has got two consequences; one is a direct consequence to the internal auditors in the county and the other is unintended. The issue of accountability in counties will be will be left for the auditors from the Auditor General’s Office to point what counties should have done. The internal auditors will not have enough money to sit in and audit the accounts of the county to help it maintain accountability. We need to ask ourselves whether we are only sending money because of population, poverty index, road access index and not following it to ensure it is utilised effectively. Looking at all the 47 counties, there is no single county that does not have pending bills. Why do these counties have pending bills? It is because of bloated budgets. Narok County is receiving Kshs9.1 billion which is slightly above what it received in the last financial year of Kshs8.8 billion. However, we need to sit down with"
}