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{
    "id": 1440067,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1440067/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 283,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Emurua Dikirr, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Johana Kipyegon",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for allowing me to also ventilate on the Equalisation Fund. As my colleagues have said, the drafters of the Constitution looked into three entities where money was supposed to be divided. That is the national Government, county governments and the Equalisation Fund. Hon. Temporary Speaker, the reason why the drafters of the Constitution looked at the Equalization Fund was because of many reasons. I think one of the reasons is that if you look at the concept of the colonial wars or even the colonialists invading other countries, it was because of resources. If you look at tribal wars wherever they are, whether from time immemorial to the current, it is because of resources. Even the political contests that we have in every country, the bottom line is that everybody is fighting for resources. That is the reason why we have all these contests. The reason the drafters of the Constitution felt we should have an allocation called the Equalization Fund is because they realised that from time immemorial, there are areas which have been marginalised both by governments and nature. When I speak of governments, I mean there have been successive governments in this country from the colonial governments to the pre- Independence or after Independence. When the drafters of the Constitution were looking at this Equalization Fund, they meant, and their major intention was to look at the areas which have never had favour from any Government. That was meant to be equalised with the rest of the country. There are also areas which have been marginalised by nature, which are not able to support agricultural or economic activities that can help the people. This is an area where the drafters of the Constitution intended to allocate this money. In the Constitution, Article 204 states thus: “There shall be one-and-a-half per cent of allocation to the equalisation.” It also talks about marginalised areas and communities. When the CRA started working on these marginalised counties, it picked 14. The reason why they picked 14 was based on several issues just like what my brother has said here, namely, poverty index and many other issues. The 14 were supposed to be allocated money from 2010 immediately after the promulgation of the Constitution. My Constituency was one of the beneficiaries because it was falling under Narok County, but we benefited five years after the promulgation of the Constitution. After that, no other money has been allocated. The only other time it has been allocated is now. We have had two allocations and if you read Section 5 of Article 204, it states that the unspent money is supposed to be kept and utilised. If you are to do a simple mathematics, from 2010 to 2024, which is 14 years, how much money is that? Who has been spending that money? Where is that money? We are almost six years to the sunset of this particular Fund. The CRA introduced another model of allocating this money because initially the 14 counties which were benefiting only benefited once. By the time they introduced 34 counties, what happened to the money that was supposed to be spent on the 14 counties because they came up to late 2020? These 14 counties which were supposed to benefit from 2010, 2011, 2012 to 2020 have never benefited. What will happen to the money that is supposed to be sent to these counties? Even when I look at the current allocation done by the CRA, it is alarming. It has never assisted anybody because the 14 marginalised counties have never risen from where they were. In fact, just like what my colleague has said, the number of marginalised counties is increasing. They increased from 14 to 34. What does that tell you? It tells you that the Government is doing nothing to alleviate the poverty level of our people, so that instead of 14, we now have 34 counties that are 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."
}