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"speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
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"content": "with clear amounts of money and clear dates of when money should go to the counties. What then happens in the National Treasury? Junior officers in National Treasury discard all that and determine when to send money and how much. Mr Temporary Speaker, Sir, as we are talking now, counties received the July disbursement just yesterday. They have not yet received the August and September disbursements. This is unacceptable. How do you even plan with this kind of disbursement? I think we have a gap somewhere in this House. Whenever we have a delay in disbursement of funds to the counties, it is important that the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning appears before us; not just in the committee, but in the whole House. We want him to tell us why there is a disbursement delay and yet, the national Government is functioning properly. They are paying their salaries and everything else. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I have a Motion on this. I presented it last year and up to now, your office has not processed it. We must be very careful not to gag legislative powers of Members such that when we make proposals for Motions, let them be approved so that Members can accept or reject them. I have a Motion on this matter of late disbursement of funds, but no one is talking to me about it. I have been asking about it everyday and I am told that it is in the Speaker's office. I am addressing your office as a deputy party leader of the ODM; a party that protects devolution. We are here to protect devolution and we get annoyed when we see our counties are not getting money. We know there are accountability issues, but let them get the money in time. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you retire from this Chamber, I want to see my Motion approved, so that it can come here, Members can debate it, accept it or reject it. We must cover the gaps and ensure that whenever there is delayed disbursement of funds, the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning must appear in the Committee of the Whole House to tell us why there is that delay. When I talk about own source revenue, the current report by the office of the CoB clearly indicates that our counties can do better. We have had counties that have been having problems with own source revenue generation, but they have improved. That tells you that our counties can do better. Murang’a County has been doing very badly in terms of revenue collection. However, Gov. Irungu Kang’ata has improved that. He has gone beyond Kshs1 billion mark of revenue collection. That tells you that something is wrong in our counties in terms of revenue collection. If this matter of own source revenue is handled, then we will be able to cover for a lot of challenges that we face in our counties, including the inability of our counties to function because of late disbursement of funds. I am also informing this House that one major source of own source revenue is health centres and hospitals. In my Committee of County Public Investment Committee and Special Funds (CPICSF), we are now processing audited reports for these hospitals. I am happy that after our meeting with the Auditor General, I have seen that she has worked very hard to table a series of audited reports for our hospitals. 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."
}