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{
    "id": 1451279,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1451279/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 126,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13219,
        "legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
        "slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
    },
    "content": "deal with fire disasters. Two weeks ago, I had a fire disaster in my own county, which is Nyamira County, in West Mugirango Constituency where I was born, in a market called Kebirigo. You will be surprised that our county government was not able to respond to that fire disaster. I am saying this with a very heavy heart and with vicarious embarrassment on behalf of my governor. He was not able to send a firefighting machine to go and stop that fire disaster because the only firefighting vehicle we have in the county government of Nyamira was lacking brakes. A firefighting engine lacking brakes! We had to seek help from Sasini Coffee Factory to send a firefighting engine vehicle to Kebirigo Market to put out the fire. I am saying this to emphasize the fact that we need a law in place so as to guide our governors on how they need to respond to fire disasters. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, having said that, I would like to appeal to our governors, when we get conditional grants from donors and the money comes to us, it is not money for free but it is money paid with interest, using tax-payers money. It should be utilized for the benefit of people who reside in counties. I am saying this because we were given Kshs50 million under a--- Grant to build a fire station in the County of Nyamira. This has been ongoing for the last two years and we are having serious audit queries in our audit reports. The Bill of Quantities (BQs) were not followed. The Auditor-General is questioning that one of the floors was omitted. Some things you cannot understand how a Governor can be given money from a donor with specifications that, use this to build a fire station and you are not able to deliver. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, two years down the line, my good friend, the Governor for Nyamira, hon. Nyaribo, has not finalized the completion of that fire station. It is a big shame and we continue appealing to our governors to utilize donor money given as conditional grants to our counties. To the people of Kebirigo, we say pole for those who lost property, whose buildings were damaged and who were subjected to loss because the county government through our Governor was not able to respond timely. We hope that in future, these are things that can be rectified by our Governor. I propose that this board we are proposing to set up in Clause 4, Sen. Abass, because firefighting is a fully devolved function, this board should be a board created in each county. We do not make a board that has a national Government approach character but we make it domiciled in each of our 47 counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you go to the composition, let the chairperson be a person from each respective county. We do not need a Cabinet Secretary to pick a board to be in charge of firefighting. These are devolved functions. Let the boards be domiciled at counties so that we have transparency. We do not want governors to be given powers to pick their cronies. We want a professional, someone who has knowledge in this field. I propose that this chairperson be someone picked competitively by the County Public Service Board (CPSB) at each of our respective counties. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}