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{
    "id": 1257830,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1257830/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 281,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "factories but were not making the roads that it was meant to do. That used to happen previously before we county governments came in. Therefore, we must find a way of ring-fencing these levies that are collected from these farmers so that we develop and ensure, that our farmers in Kitui and all the farmers in Kenya, who shall be participating in the development of this crop have good extension services. They also must have better pest control because the county government will be able to use that levy to send one or two officers to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) to be trained. Sen. Wambua, go back to Kitui, impart knowledge to the farmers with knowledge, and ensure that if this year you are producing 10 kilogrammes per acre, there are practices that can be used even to make you produce 15 or 20 kilogrammes. That is the beauty of Government. That is how county governments need to operate. We must stop this obsession of imagining that we shall just always send monies to counties. It is possible to find at some point we will say, finally, we have sent enough resources and services. We must be creative in our thinking and challenge our counties. I persuade my colleague Senators to believe and understand that it is possible. I have seen this with my tea farmers. I see this even with sugar cane farmers in my county who are now pleading and saying, please, pass the Sugar Bill that is before the Senate and the National Assembly. We do not mind paying the sugar development levy so long as it is ring-fenced and we know that it shall come to develop roads for us that shall take the cane back to the factories and develop seed cane for us. People do not have a problem paying taxes. They just have a problem with how those taxes are spent. Even this conversation about the Finance Bill is all about people asking themselves what their assurance is, once they pay this money to the Government. I want to give an assurance that as a leader in this House, as a leader in one of the three Arms of Government in charge of the legislature, now that the Finance Bill has been passed, the duty is upon us to ensure that every tax that Kenyans pay to this administration is put to prudent use so that, eventually, we shall to a good extent, win over those Kenyans who have a problem paying taxes simply on account that they do not see it is going to do that which it was meant for. This is a proposal that will find itself in this particular Bill and for which I agree with Sen. Wambua. Many times, and we have seen these proposals, our counties rely on the national Government in the transfer of functions. When a county, for example, is not able to collect levies for one reason or the other, they are not able to provide a particular service. They surrender it to the national Government. Sen. Wambua, if and when this Bill is eventually passed and enacted into law, it is possible to strictly follow every letter and spirit of this document and have your own county of Kitui develop and build this practice of mung cultivation to such excellent levels that other counties and the national Government, can transfer the function of developing policy and the practices of mung beans farming to County Government of Kitui so that whatever they use, whatever practices they have learned, applies across the country."
}