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{
    "id": 1489934,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1489934/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 79,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kisang",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2263,
        "legal_name": "William Kipkemoi Kisang",
        "slug": "william-kipkemoi-kisang"
    },
    "content": "stipend, an allowance for them to move around. They have reduced the allocation to CHPs to Kshs2.58 billion. This means that some CHPs who are already helping our people on the ground will have to work without an allowance. How do they expect them to support? It means that communities will not have CHPs to do the basic health issues. We reject this amendment. They will have to return what they removed. The other issue that I want to touch on is the Road Maintenance Levy Fund. This is a fund that, the other day, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Roads gazetted and increased from Kshs18 per litre to Kshs25 per litre. Our colleagues have removed over Kshs10 billion. If anything, they should have doubled and sent this money to the counties, so that our feeder roads within the counties are motorable, our farmers are able to take the produce to the market and we are able to take our animals to the market. We refuse this. The Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) is domiciled in our municipalities. What business do we have to send this money to KURA? We should send the money to our counties. KeRRA is an acronym for Kenya Rural Roads Authority. Where is rural? Is rural in the national Government or the counties? Therefore, this money must go to our counties. We demand reinstatement of the Kshs10.5 billion. If possible, we can raise it to Kshs15 billion. There is an issue we have talked about. We need to have industrial parks within our counties to spur the economy and generate employment for our youth. There was a conditional grant of Kshs250 million for each county. They had already identified a piece of land to put up the industrial parks and the counties contributed Kshs250 million. In Elgeyo-Marakwet County, our Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) had already agreed with the Executive that the county to set aside Kshs250 million. You can imagine this money has been removed from the national Government portion. What will happen? It means that our youth will continue missing employment opportunities. We need this money to be reinstated, so that we can generate employment. Our youth came to Parliament sometime in June because they were angry with us. They were demanding for opportunities. We should not give them another opportunity to come back to Parliament. We need to reinstate the resources that are going to the counties. We have also talked about health. Our hospitals do not have resources. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we gave money to the counties to construct Intensive Care Units (ICUs). If you go around the counties, you will be surprised that they do not have ICU beds. What happened to conditional grants that we gave out during Covid-19 pandemic period? The counties are complaining that they do not have nurses who are trained to operate ICUs. Therefore, we need more resources, so that our counties can have ICU beds. In fact, I was surprised that there are five counties that were given resources in the Financial Year 2023/2024 to put up county headquarters and Elgeyo-Marakwet County was not one of them. The county headquarters and county assemblies in Elgeyo- Marakwet are in prefabs and have continued to be there. In fact, I have met the Finance and Budget Committee several times. We have also discussed with the Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Committee that we need to allocate additional conditional grants to our counties, especially those that do not have county headquarters or modern county assemblies. 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."
}