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{
    "id": 1445803,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1445803/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 197,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "KIRDI) has put up a huge building, and it has been ongoing for the last almost 15 years. The Kenya National Examination Council put up a building in South C for close to 35 or 40 years, and even up to date, they have moved to the place, but it is not complete. Therefore, we need to relook at this closely as Senators, so that we bite the bullet, propose to allocate resources, and we give them timeframes. In fact, if you read the Report, some of the counties changed the locations where the county headquarters was supposed to be put up. What happened? When you are doing the tender documents, there should have been a design, and when you are doing the design, there is a location that the design was done. Why do you change the scope of the project along the way? As you change the scope along the way, the cost of the project will escalate, the contractors will leave site, come back later on and claim idle equipment on site. That is why if we do not make the right decision, this county headquarters will continue being incomplete for a long time. I remember when we were in Turkana County last year for the Senate Mashinani; the county headquarters for Turkana had also stalled. I know they use their own resources to put up the county headquarters, but it is not benefiting. The reason resources are allocated is so that people in the counties can access services easily because they know where the governors and the county executives are. Now, we are wasting a lot of resources across these five counties by hiring offices instead of benefiting from the resources that were allocated. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is also good to know that when you use public works to do the design and implementation, the cost of the projects is actually more than double because of corruption. They are very inefficient. In fact, the counties are struggling especially when it comes to monitoring and implementation. The public works officers are on salaries and yet they ask for allowances to go and visit the sites. This is an area where we need to build capacity for our county governments, so that they do not have to rely on public works officers from the national Government. As I had said earlier, we also need to relook at other counties such as Elgeyo- Marakwet County. I know when Sen. Mandago was Governor of Uasin Gishu, he did a lot of good work. He put up six sub-county headquarters across all the six constituencies in Uasin Ngishu. In Elgeyo-Marakwet, we have done nothing because we do not have enough resources. I will be asking the Finance and Budget Committee to relook at other counties such as the Elgeyo-Marakwet County, which are getting less than Kshs5 billion, so that we can also benefit from these conditional grants and put up county assemblies and county headquarters, so that we can look like other Kenyans. In fact, when I appeared in the Committee sometimes back, I said that it will be unfair if after 20 years, some counties such as Elgeyo-Marakwet will look like Kenya while others will look like Singapore when we were at the same level in 1972. This is unfair and discrimination. It is something that we need to relook at, so that others are not favoured. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only.A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and Audio Services,Senate."
}