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{
    "id": 1258954,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1258954/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1075,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I also rise to support this important Bill coming from the Senate. From the outset, I want to say that it is good this is coming from the Senate. We would want to see our Senate legislating many more Bills relating to counties and spending most of their time working on issues relating to counties. We have seen situations where our Senators take too much time focusing on duties of the national government and forgetting counties. I will be very brief because of the time element. As I support this important Bill, I have the following observations. The first is exchequer releases. Counties are going through hard times because of late exchequer releases. It does not make sense when we have money in the Budget and we do not support them in implementation. Second is the autonomy of county assemblies. My plea to governors is that they facilitate county assemblies to do their work since county assemblies do not have financial autonomy. We have heard of situations where county assemblies are at the mercy of governors to get money to do their work. In that case, it affects their effectiveness. It is high time governors became facilitative so that assemblies do their work as expected in the law. The third item is own revenue. It is important that county governments plan well so that they improve their revenue. In that case, they will supplement equitable share from the government and achieve much more for their people. You will note that the gross domestic products at local levels in some counties were even better than when governors took over. That means some counties are becoming worse with devolution, as compared to where they started. It is time governors took time and ensured they are improving the lives of their people. As I conclude, it is good to ensure we address corruption. There is this common talk in the streets that we devolved development and corruption at the same time. Only governors and their County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) can change that perception. It is high time Governors and their CECMs did away with mainstreaming corruption in their operations. In that case, we will be getting many benefits from what we have been doing."
}