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{
    "id": 1414243,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1414243/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 283,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Ojiambo Oundo",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Articles 95 and 96 of the Constitution bestows upon the National Assembly the mandate to oversight Government funds. Indeed, this is what Members of Parliament do in the National Assembly and also in Mashinani in respect to the NG-CDF. Firstly, I want to reiterate very clearly for avoidance of doubt, that Members of Parliament are not Members of the NG-CDF committees, at the constituency level. Secondly, with the change of the law, even when Members of Parliament by any accident used to sit in the oversight committee, that has long been reversed. So, essentially the NG-CDF is a completely independent Fund run by its own structures. The Members of Parliament only oversight, just like we oversight national Government projects. We can attend the launch of any national Government project by the President, cabinet secretary or principal secretary. So, our attendance in a launch or handover is part of our representation and oversight role. We simply oversight by seeking to find out what has been done. We are not directly involved in the management of this Fund. Reports are brought here, but we just oversight like anybody else can do anywhere. So, I want members of the press and everybody to desist from associating a Member of Parliament with any misappropriation, corruption or unethical management of funds at any given time. The Authority to Incur Expenditure holder, as the Chairperson clearly explained, is the Fund Accounts Manager at the constituency level while it is the Chief Executive Officer at the board level. So, if there is an issue, the people to answer questions are the AIE holders or the Fund Accounts Managers who also work within the local context. So, it is important for the office of the Auditor-General and all those involved in any form of oversight or audit to put in mind that there is a local environment or circumstances. During the procurement process, you can go to some remote constituencies and not get contractors with the required documentation at any given time. You impose certain types of plants and machineries, and expect some kind of personnel who will never be found. If we were to strictly follow the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, most of the tenders for small projects by the National Government Constituencies Development Fund would be non-responsive. Therefore, the funds would not be spent and there would be no value for money. That is why we always urge the auditors to consider what the law says, but the law is progressive. It is not stuck in one point or another. Even the provisions about interpretation of the Constitution state that it is a living document which must be interpreted as such and not as a dead horse, which you flog and does not respond. It is not only this particular Fund. Other funds like the Equalisation Fund work in very remote places. The Office of the Auditor-General should be realistic, reasonable, and alive to the fact that there are local circumstances that dictate different approaches to a strict procurement process that could be undertaken here in Nairobi or elsewhere. It is similar when it comes to building by-laws. There are adaptive building by-laws depending on the local circumstances. Some of the building materials that we use in Nairobi are not applicable in some places because of the adverse environmental and weather conditions. These are the kinds of debates that we need to put in place so that we do not just operate in a straitjacket as if we are robots who are unable to think beyond a reasonable level. Since the NG-CDF came into operation - and I stand to be corrected - if we conducted an opinion poll, every Kenyan would flag out the NG-CDF as the most impactful, devolved Fund in this country. Go anywhere in this country and you will see its impact. Last week on Friday, I had the privilege to drive all the way from Suna West to Ndhiwa, through Karachuonyo to Kisumu City. The only thing we saw were signboards for the NG- CDF projects everywhere we went. Around Katito Town, I stopped and asked the locals whether there was no county government in that part of the world, which looked like the western part where I come from. The only county government signboards we could see were 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"
}