Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1418489,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1418489/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 177,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kilifi North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Owen Baya",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "of having those RDAs that consume money by paying a lot of staff and doing nothing, we hand them over to the regional blocks and fund them to perform the functions of the county governments. Some of the RDAs receive a lot of money from donors. In the case of the Coast Development Authority (CDA), it has received millions of shillings from the Italian Government. However, we see them sitting and dividing the tenders amongst their colleagues and families. At the end of the day, the coastal people do not benefit from the Authority because there is no structure to govern them. Even the Cabinet Secretary responsible for the RDAs has no say under the statutes governing those RDAs. They operate like parastatals and yet, we know that they are not parastatals. They consume a lot of money from the national Government and give no results. I would like us to strengthen them so that they can either undertake county government functions or national Government functions. It will give us an opportunity to send more money to the county governments for development, if we allow the RDAs to be what are now the economic blocks that we have. We have Jumuiya ya Kaunti za Pwani (JKP) in the Coast and the Lake Region Economic Block (LREB). The economic blocks are doing work that the governors should be doing. So, there is a conflict in law and I hope my friend, the Chairperson who is here, takes cognizance of those facts so that we can reform the RDAs. However, they must choose where to belong. They cannot be a cow and a goat at the same time. They have to choose who they want to be so that we get the benefits for the money that we put in them. We also need to align them to the Mwongozo on governance. I think they have many board members. How do you give membership of the CDA Board to someone who has never been to the Coast region and understands nothing about the region? How does he sit down to decide development issues for a region he understands nothing about? How do you take a person from the Coast region to the LREB to discuss issues of the lake region that he understands nothing about?"
}