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{
    "id": 1269200,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1269200/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 260,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "business of domesticating CoG in Statute, as well as County Assembly Forum (CAF), so that when we do legislation, we incorporate them. I know the struggle is to find an anchor point where all the 47 county governments fit. The lazier thing to do is simply to send them to the national Government yet that is not what we need. That is not entrenching devolution, which is one of the reasons for our existence as a House. I propose that we quickly move in that particular space so that each time we do legislation such as this - anything that requires the coming together of all the 47 county governments - let the CoG take the lead in making the regulations. They are many, even those that we are doing, including the law that you have proposed to this House on amendment to the Tea Bill. Part of the challenges we have is the number of representatives of the county government vis-à-vis those of the national Government. We know that agriculture is largely devolved, yet when you see the board that we passed here, you have a representative from the Ministry of Trade, from the Ministry of the National Treasury, Ministry of Agriculture and only two representatives from the CoG. These are conversations that we need to have. Over and above that, there is a proposal for the licencing authority to be required to serve notice on people. I love that because it is very easy for people to misbehave. Thanks to this particular law because there will be an imagination that local law enforcement will be hindered by the fact that this law has been uniformly passed here at the Senate and so the specific county government does not have the power to hold a particular individual to account. I like what Sen. Mariam Omar has provided for and there is still power to the local licencing authority who can give notice if you are not compliant. You know the conversation, for example, that we are having about liquor licencing. I know for a fact that very soon part of the proposals that we shall be having will be those on liquor licensing. If there has ever been a timely Bill that is alive to the situation and a conversation that is going on in the country, it is this Bill, with the alcohol and drug abuse situation in our county governments. You find that a particular county has passed certain laws, however, when we handed over the powers to licence to our county governments, that is when we started to have the challenges that we are having in various parts of the country. You find in a small shopping centre that because of the contribution that the liquor licences providers give to our county governments, the train has been opened and in that small centre there are two or three kiosks, then 17 bars that have all been licenced. In such a place, you find that there is only one butchery, so that if there is a drunkard who is rich on that particular day, that is where they stream, while the rest of his colleagues are in the 16 other bars. We need to make it uniform. That procedure and that authority is what has been provided with this particular law so that even counties can benchmark to know how we are handling this situation. What number of bars are you licensing per square foot per population of people; distance, proximity to school; procedures that can be listed down and county governments can learn from each other. That is extremely important. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard Services,Senate."
}