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{
"id": 1384858,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1384858/?format=api",
"text_counter": 824,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "First and foremost, I support it because we know for sure that we have more than six Acts of Parliament dealing with individual regional development authorities, which we refer to so as to know exactly what each authority does. Unfortunately, it is unclear to us, why we set up these authorities those years of yore. In spite of my good friend, Dr Oundo, heaping praises on our late President Daniel arap Moi, the idea at that time was to try and work on something similar to devolution. He came up with several strategies on how to move resources from Nairobi to rural areas, including the famous District Focus for Rural Development Strategy, then these regional development authorities, which were modeled along regions of Kenya at independence. Maybe there was also an element of job creation. He was trying to get employment for his friends and cronies at that time so as to create some regional balancing in what was being done. Are they useful today? That is what we must ask ourselves. Do we need several regional development authorities when we have 47 counties, supposed to be dealing with every aspect not dealt with by the national Government? We must ask ourselves. Are we not spreading the resources of the country too thin by allocating a small amount of money to many regional development authorities in every budget cycle? They are all under a ministry, whether it is the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation, Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, or whichever ministry. Do we really need them? In my estimation, this is a good idea whose time has come to an end. We should now be working towards folding all these authorities and vesting them in county governments. There are regional development authorities in the Eastern region dealing with water and irrigation. The same applies to Central, which has the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority (TARDA). Nyanza and Western Kenya have the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA), and Ewaso Ng'iro North Development Authority (ENNDA), among others. It is high time we folded them and put all their responsibilities under county governments. Where they are unable to handle it, the ministries will assist since they have fewer responsibilities because counties eased them. I have gone through the Bill and for all intents and purposes, I agree we should bring them together. This will ensure that if a question is asked on which regime of law applies to regional development authorities, we shall have a Regional Development Authorities Act to refer to, as soon as this Bill is assented to. That way, we do not have to grapple and grope in darkness when looking for which law applies to which authority. I agree that it is also important to set out the authorities in the law which we have done. We have also tried to state the functions of each authority. As I conclude, we shall set up boards and we need to look into them. One is because their membership is too high. There are 11 board members, and they should not be more than seven, as required by our Constitution. There is no reason whatsoever why we should have more than seven board members. Two, do we really need these boards? As we consider and ponder on folding these organisations, this is an important question. Towards the end of the Bill, we have indicated how these authorities will be administered and the financial provisions to be made during budgeting. It is also important to note that we have delegated to the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Regional Development the authority to make delegated legislation, that is, subsidiary laws and rules required to actualise this Act of Parliament. I do not have a problem with all this. As I support, my view is that we must sit down as a country and examine ourselves on whether we require these authorities. As we put them under one statute, we want to see more of their work in the regions. It is not just a question of when I go to Nyeri to see Tana Water… It is also important to note that apart from these authorities, we have other smaller entities that resemble them, like TARDA has another entity known as Tana Water Works Development Agency based in Nyeri. I have no idea what they do differently. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
}