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{
    "id": 1400486,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400486/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 174,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I keep leaning back to Nairobi because it is one of the counties that I believe--- I do not want to sound political--- its potential is not being exploited. What is happening is because there is a baseline that this is the expected revenue that Nairobi County gives any way. Since time immemorial and devolution, there has not been any need to interrogate how that revenue is coming in. If an audit were to be done in Nairobi City County on how the own source revenue is being generated from Nairobi County, we would come back to the conversation on property taxes, on the levies that are put on commercial properties, on land and things like that. In the end, the people who are hit by the calamities that sometimes we face in Nairobi City County are the same owners of these properties. There has to be some idea of how we can legislate around a percentage of those property taxes being pumped back into the infrastructure of those localities and the properties around there. I support this Bill. I think people who have had conversations with me would agree that I have played a very critical role of pushing the conversation of own-source revenue against relying on the national budget, the supplementary budgets, the marginalized funds and things like that. As for the counties which are at the bottom of the list of the own-source revenue, that is, counties like Wajir, Tana River, Mandera, West Pokot and Marsabit, I think it is high time that we started asking them the very difficult question of why are they still not able to raise your economic activities? What is not happening? Devolution has been here. We have channeled funds down to the county and the grassroots. We have added supplementary budgets and marginalized funds. A county like Marsabit is receiving a lot of that money, yet, we still talk about low income on the own- source revenue. Why? So where is the money going? What is happening? Madam Temporary Speaker, as I support this Bill, I would like to echo the sentiments of Sen. Omogeni that corruption is one thing that we must deal with. We may legislate the property taxes and deal with the issue of the T-junctions, but if do not talk about what we are going to do with the issue of governors who have decided to just loot the coffers of the county government, then we will not be improving the lives of Kenyans in the grassroots. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Bill. Thank you."
}