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{
    "id": 1474459,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1474459/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 361,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "off. An amendment should lead to incremental improvements in the monies that go to counties and in the services that counties offer. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I oppose because the Bill as it is before us, proposes a reduction to Kshs380 billion. This Senate, through the Finance and Budget Committee, which we gave the responsibility to carry out public participation, advised us that the right allocation to county governments ought to be Kshs415.9 billion. All of us across the aisle, it was a unilateral agreement that counties need Kshs415.9 billion and reasons were given. The reasons included the non-discretionary expenditure that Sen. Oketch Gicheru has talked about. The non-discretionary expenditure amounts to Kshs30 billion. When the two Houses went into mediation, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale and I were part of the Mediation Committee. We put up a strong fight. We insisted on the Kshs415 billion, but we were convinced that fiscal consolidation and other big English would not allow that money to be realised. We settled on Kshs401 billion. That did not take away the discretionary expenditure. We even proposed scrapping the money allocated to county aggregation and industrial parks for the counties that had not started. We were told that this was a presidential initiative that could not be touched. We ended up with 47 aggregation and industrial parks that will be highly exalted warehouses costing Kshs500 million without anything productive going on inside. In aggregation and industrial parks, you must look at the value chain. It is not just putting up a building on one model. On one model, one Bill of Quantities is done in Nairobi. You are telling Tharaka Nithi County to build a county aggregation and industrial park, the size and scale equivalent to Uasin Gishu. This cannot be practical. If we talk about reduction, we must also identify the expenditure areas we should avoid. For that reason, we agreed in mediation to go for Kshs400 billion. If we now say that counties should get Kshs380 billion, then counties will shut down. The allocation in the prior financial year was Kshs384 billion. The National Assembly tried to be clever by saying that out of the 384 billion, an amount was earmarked for road maintenance levy, so that it should be deducted from the baseline. That is conmanship. There is no way this Senate, looking at its constitutional mandate under Article 96, can preside over and tolerate an amendment Bill that wants to reduce the allocation to Kshs380 billion when the prior year was Kshs384 billion and when our original proposal was Kshs415.9 billion. I oppose this amendment. If the report was here saying that we are only deleting Clause 3 and only amending the row on shareable revenue and national Government share of that and retaining the Equalisation Fund, the County Equitable share to what was in the Bill as originally passed then this amendment is not a very useful one."
}