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{
    "id": 1418620,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1418620/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 308,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Wajir North, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ibrahim Saney",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Quite often than not, we always take pride in talking under the tutelage of our very pragmatic and progressive Constitution of Kenya, 2010. In a big way, I feel that this Bill contradicts the spirit and principles of the same Constitution. I rightly agree with my predecessor in contributing to what is regional. We only have two regional entities; that is, the national tier and county tier. We have 47 county governments and those are the bodies that should steer our country towards economic and other developmental frontiers. Having perused through this Bill, in as much as it was once noble when we had our old Constitution and regional bodies were the best to trigger development, it is true this has been overtaken by our Constitution of Kenya, 2010. What we see in this Bill is an overlap of mandate and roles. The role those regional entities are trying to play is what our county governments are supposed to do. I feel it is only fair to give governors what is due to them. We cannot always start a conflict with them. Whether they perform their duties or not is another thing altogether, but what is due to them should be theirs. Money should flow and this role should be cascaded to our devolved units. If you look at one of the roles of a regional authority, you will see a very big overlap of mandate. Conservation and preservation of natural resource issues, database management and many others are also the roles of the national Government in some way. Very soon we shall have conflict of laws. We are trying to legislate so much, to an extent that we will be in a spot where our laws shall be in conflict. Another issue is their boards. We want a leaner government to, at least, save money and resources so that our economy can recover. In this Bill, I saw a Board of Directors of nearly 13 members. This is too big for decision-making and it will be a good area for conflicts in managing the same organisations. I believe they would have done better and created leaner boards. Another issue is the nomenclature. What is a river authority? Where does it start and end? For example, Tana and Athi rivers flow to the Coast, and then the Coast Development Authority picks up from there. Then you ask yourself how they come up with names for those zones. I belong to Ewaso Nyiro North Development Authority (ENNDA), which does not impact my constituency at all. It would rather have been categorised or named otherwise because it has no relevance. Mount Kenya is the source of all rivers which flow into the Indian Ocean and traverses the entire nation. I have not seen Mount Kenya development authority, whereas Nairobi is our capital city. So, developmentally, there is ambiguity. What is a development authority and what does it encompass? What is its limit? Where does it start and end? Without much ado, I will be frank and say that I entirely oppose this Bill. Thank you."
}