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{
    "id": 1380153,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1380153/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 333,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13599,
        "legal_name": "Sifuna Edwin Watenya",
        "slug": "sifuna-edwin-watenya"
    },
    "content": "what has been accumulated over the years, especially the penalties imposed for those non-remittances. As Sen. Osotsi has said, Nairobi has now become notorious and infamous. If there is any money owed by county governments, Nairobi always takes the bulk of the share. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you talk about pending bills, Nairobi leads in pending bills with almost Kshs100 million unpaid to suppliers. The other day when we were discussing the Report by the Committee on Energy, Kenya Power is owed Kshs3.5 billion by all counties. Out of that, Kshs2.17 billion is for Nairobi County alone. Now, again, Nairobi is featured as the number one county. Out of the Kshs80 billion that is owed to the pension funds by county governments, it takes the share of almost half at Kshs39 billion. When you speak to the counties, you will see that in the Report, they are saying that their own-source revenues are low. Nairobi collects almost Kshs20 billion in own-source revenue. Our total budget this year is over Kshs40 billion, in addition to the Kshs20 billion that comes from the Equitable Share. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this House must take very strong positions on these issues because we are fighting for people who retired from these county governments years ago. People have passed on, their families are camping at the offices of CPF, Local Authorities Pensions Trust (LAPTRUST) and Local Authorities Provident Fund (LAPFUND) looking for payment of pensions that should have essentially been paid for by now. Therefore, some of the suggestions I saw there of debt swaps with assets of county governments, and you will see that was a suggestion made by LAPFUND on page 17. I would not support that at all because this is how county government assets are going to be stripped in the guise of payment of debts. Let us use the money that is collected from Nairobians, which is due to Nairobians under the division of revenue or the equitable share to pay these pension funds because they are deducted from the employees' payslips. Mr. Temporary Speaker, I conclude by saying that it is very unfair for you to deduct monies from an employee. If you look at the average payslip of a Kanjo worker here in Nairobi; they are suffering under the labour of all the taxes that have been imposed by this current regime which includes the housing levy we hear is coming before the House, the revised rates of National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and National Social Security Fund (NSSF). It is only fair that if you deduct money on pensions, even if they are getting the short end of the stick in terms of taxes, they are not seeing the value of payment of their taxes. At least when they retire, we should make sure we ringfence this amount so that they are paid their dues. For Nairobi, we will not allow the Governor to get away with this. He must remit the monies. I will do everything recommended in this Report including deducting this money here so that we find a reason to come to talk to the Senate at last. I thank you and beg to second."
}