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{
    "id": 1494927,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494927/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 53,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13588,
        "legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
        "slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
    },
    "content": "Currently, they depend on the county executive for their funding yet there are multiple delays. The first is occasioned by the National Treasury which delays to release funds to the counties. The county executive further creates a delay which hampers the performance of the county assemblies. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if there are elected people in this country who suffer a lot then it is the MCAs. They stay in the villages with the people, wake up in the morning with the people and go to sleep with them. We are lucky, as Senators and Members of the National Assembly, because we are in Nairobi most of the time and only go home over the weekend. The MCAs are at home all the time which means that there is more pressure on them, especially financial pressure. That challenge is further enhanced by lack of autonomy which means delays in the payment of their salaries. This Bill is timely because it will create a new fund called the County Assembly Fund which will now be administered by the respective county assembly. To a large extent, this will resolve the delays that have been experienced at the county assemblies. This Bill under Clause 6 empowers the clerk of the county assembly to be the administrator of this Fund. This will further enhance the independence of the county assembly because at the moment, the clerk has no powers on matters to do with finances at the county executive. This Bill will now give the clerk the powers and he is answerable to the County Assembly Service Board (CASB). Clause 6(7) talks about the role of administrator in seeking approvals from the Controller of Budget (COB) before withdrawing money from the county assembly's fund under the authority. I know that last time when Members were contributing on this Motion, they had issues with inefficiencies and further delays at the office of the CoB. Mr. Speaker, Sir something has to be done at the Office of the Controller of the Budget (CoB). I agree with the Members who said it is a high time that (CoB) is devolved properly to the counties so that we do not have a situation where people come to stay in Nairobi for weeks looking for approvals from the CoB and therefore this opens another channel for corruption. We hear that people have to greet others very well for them to receive their approvals. We therefore need to do something. In fact, this whole process of CoB should be automated. I do not understand why in these modern days, people are still moving around with documents from counties to come to the CoB for the documents to be reviewed before the approval for the expenditure is done. This process can be automated so that we do not have a scenario where counties are delayed to access their money because of waiting for approvals at the Office of the CoB. I have also noticed that under Clause 6 (10), there is a proposal that- “Any unutilised balances in the County Assembly Fund shall not lapse at the end of the financial year but shall be retained for the purposes for which it was established.” Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is very progressive because the current scenario is that when county assemblies are unable to spend the money, it is swept back to the County Revenue Fund (CRF). However, in this case, the funds will be there to be rolled to the next financial year. This further enhances the financial position of our 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."
}