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{
    "id": 1271822,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1271822/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 353,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Onyonka",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13592,
        "legal_name": "Onyonka Richard Momoima",
        "slug": "onyonka-richard-momoima"
    },
    "content": "The second issue that I have discovered or experienced since coming to the Senate and being in this Committee and many of the other committees like the County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC), is that the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Budget, which we are talking about now, and the Senate Standing Committee on Devolution, has been quite amazing. First, I have understood that unless we protect devolution fiercely, there is a possibility that even by default, not by design, devolution can fail. We must take responsibility as the Senate, which is the body that is mandated to make sure that we oversight and make sure that the resources that are raised from our people are used well, effectively, and openly without any corruption or wastage. This is the message we sent to the governors and also, indeed, to the national Government because the two governments as we are observing, seem to be having many of these issues. You will hear everybody talking about wastage, wastage, wastage. It is the same way I saw President William Ruto asking why we have Cabinet Ministers traveling to Seychelles. You find 17 people on a flight going to the Seychelles. They do not even know that Seychelles is one of the largest countries that produces sugar in Africa. They just go and stay on holiday for two weeks and come back, paid the per diem, which we all get, and assume life is normal. We have the same county governments. I am shocked that Kisii County is one of the county governments where the governor has just taken about 40 Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) to China on holiday, and they are using public money. Can you imagine what 40 individuals will consume when they travel abroad? I can tell you that it is not less than Kshs2 million. A sum of Kshs2 million multiplied by 40 individuals is Kshs80 million and yet Kisii Level 6 Hospital does not have medicine. Kisii Level 6 Hospital and other peripheral health centres do not have enough nurses. Can you imagine what Kshs100 million can do in a year in terms of providing community healthcare workers, who are paid kshs5,000 a month, and they are 1,000 in Kisii? If you multiply with the amount of money that we are using to take a trip to China--- I would not say that Kisii’s case is particularly unique. This is what all the county governments are doing. They say that they are going to benchmark about growing something, or that they are going to benchmark about the construction of our roads. We have all the blueprints in the Ministry of Public Works. If you want to do a road in West Pokot and you want the Bill of Quantities (BQ), it is there. What you have to factor in is only the inflation and you know what the figures are. However, MCAs and indeed this House suffers from that disease. That is why I am so happy that President William Ruto has said that Cabinet Secretaries should travel with only three people. All the Members of the National Assembly (MPs) should only take two or three trips. Let us try and save our people the pain, anger, and annoyance of electing us every five years. These people are being taxed heavily because we are to catch up with the past mistakes of misuse and abuse of public funds. I want to plead with my colleagues that let us be careful and let us understand that our people expect better from us. That our people want us to make sure that our counties"
}