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{
    "id": 1464487,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1464487/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 368,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John K. Mutunga",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "oversight role has been thorough to the extent that we do not have a qualified account for those years I have been in charge of Tigania West. I say this without any fear of contradiction. I link this with a situation where we have all the county accounts being qualified. We know what a qualified account means. It means the statement that the Auditor-General writes as the summary statement of the account, says that “this account is okay, apart from the fact that some things were not done correctly.” This, therefore, means that the county accounts are not very clean. I am trying to bring to the notice of this House the statement made especially at the Senate. Whenever Senators get a chance to speak about anything, they speak badly about the NG-CDF, why it should be done away with and how it has not assisted this country. I want to pick out a few Senators without mentioning names and especially, those who have been in this House. They have been Members of Parliament. They have had to oversee the NG-CDF and probably, have done a lot of good work in their backyards. However, without being personal but purely objective, if you hear the statements they make, they are so convinced that NG-CDF is misused by Members of Parliament yet there is a National Government Constituencies Development Fund Act, 2015 which governs how NG-CDF is supposed to be utilised and the process is very clear. When they were Members of Parliament, did they misuse NG-CDF? Is that what they are telling Kenyans? Some of them appear in the morning, midday and evening on television shows, so emphatic on how NG-CDF has been misused. Sometimes you wonder because this Member has been a Member of Parliament for up to four terms overseeing NG-CDF yet he claims that it has been misused. This is a declaration to Kenyans that he or she has been misusing this money. Let me narrow down to the role of the Senate in as far as oversight of the resources is concerned. Senate oversees the county resources and it is important to note that county resources are qualified based on their audited accounts. That being the case, this morning, we took some time to discuss the report on additional allocations to the counties. The report was about giving counties more money, which is an additional allocation to the legally allowed share that we give them. Most of the action development in all counties are from these allocations. Most of them are also donor funded. From the agricultural background, we have negotiated projects between the donor and the Kenyan Government. These negotiations go as far as saying who is going to implement what. When it comes to implementation, donors believe and understand the fact that devolution has to work and, therefore, devolved resources must go to the county, even if they are national Government resources. That is why we are discussing them at this point in time and calling them additional resources. They take these resources directly to the counties. It is possible that the Senators might not know how much of these resources go to the counties directly as an arrangement between the donors and the county governments. It is also possible that the Members of the County Assemblies may not be aware of some of these issues. So, there is a likely lacuna that there are some resources that are handled by the governors and the oversight institutions are not aware. If they are not aware of them, are they thorough in their job? There is also a high level of wastage and corruption among counties, which has been cited in many cases. As this House considers the issue of corruption this morning, we need to rethink accountability. And unless we do so, our resources will be misused. The Senate has failed Kenya as a nation for holding governors accountable. Can Senators tell us that they have been overseeing these Governors properly? Why do we have qualified accounts every time? Why do we have resources misused? Why do we hear of cases of money being embezzled from the counties yet they are overseeing? Even where the county assemblies have done their 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."
}