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{
    "id": 1406049,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406049/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 377,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "We are in 2023/2024, moving to 2024/2025 within the next few months. We are still going to be relying on finances audited and approved by the National Assembly for us to be able to divide the money. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we are now told that the share of revenue of county governments is 24.9 per cent of the approved financials of 2020/2021. In reality, what is being shared to the county government is only 13 per cent, which is against the Constitution. Some of these things must be demystified for Kenyans to understand. There are a lot of those feel-good statements out there. A member of the National Assembly would go out to say, “no, we have given county governments 25 per cent of all the shareable revenue that we have.” In reality, it is only 13.3 per cent. It is not right to even demand that county governments contribute to paying these community health workers, a project of the national Government. Health is devolved as stated in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution. My good friend, the Chairperson of the Committee on Energy, guess what? The Ministry of Health budget is equivalent to almost 10 counties shareable revenue. That is why you see the Cabinet Secretary in charge of health is untouchable because she has the money. In reality, Kenyans do not understand the pain we go through in this House trying to demonstrate why Kenyans should be happy. Now, I am saying that those doctors must go back to the hospitals because a national Government must pay. We must make sure that we try to be our brothers’ keepers because we are not. It is imperative that all 47 Senators elected to represent their people are here. They take the Division of Revenue Bill and go through it. What the Committee on Finance and Budget did is commendable. What shocks me is that a Bill goes through Parliament, where we have staff that we pay money and is then published with the Kenya Gazette, but it is not accurate. What do you call that? We all know the baseline for last year. How do you reduce it by over Kshs10 billion and then you come say, ‘guess what, we are increasing the allocation to counties by ‘x’ amount of money?’ Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, national Government projects should be national Government projects. The reason today county governments are not able to pay their own pending bills is because county governments, with the same feel-good political statement, are diverting the money. They appease the national Government by probably building those national Government projects with it. Why can we not learn to live within our means? If only all those stakeholders who gave their views to the Committee were the first ones to say, ‘gentlemen, the amount which you are proposing to allocate to county governments is inadequate.’ These are experts, technocrats and people who understand. They are constitutional bodies that have been set up to ensure that, at least, we maintain fiduciary responsibility and help our counties grow. They can come and tell us that the amount of money we are sending to the counties is not enough. Should we ignore it? National Assembly, come on! Some things annoy me and people need to know. Sometimes members of the Executive go out there and say they have given county government ‘x’ amount of money. The Executive does not give county governments money. We, in Parliament, are the ones who divide the money between the Executive and county governments. 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 and AudioServices, Senate."
}