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{
    "id": 1494997,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494997/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 123,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "committee which was hived from the committee I was chairing at the that time. This was the Committee on Finance. When it was hived off, we got a budget committee and we could now scrutinize the budget before it was brought and banked. We were using colonial laws, which only allowed us to deduct Kshs20, which was one pound. That is the only thing Parliament could deduct from the budget. Therefore, Parliament was held at ransom although we were called oversight in quotes. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you are giving the counties something which they have not struggled for long as the Parliament did to get PSC, the Budget Committee to scrutinise the budget. This Bill which you have brought will enable the MCAs to have some little bit of autonomy. However, that autonomy will not come until we also do something else. Maybe somebody else should take up this matter. I do not think I have that energy now to take up the matter. However, I am advising Sen. Osotsi to take up this matter. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is actually making it very difficult for MCAs to oversight the executive. If you look at the pay slip of the MCAs, it is peanuts. Yet they are oversighting somebody who is getting over Kshs1 million in a month. They are getting something less than Kshs100,000. I looked at the pay slip of one MCA from Nakuru who tabled it before our Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations. I said this is one way of disabling MCAs to do the oversight. You cannot do oversight when you are suffering pecuniary embarrassment. The amount of money you are getting is peanuts. We must find a way of dealing with this issue of remunerating the MCAs properly. However, this will not be part of this Bill. I support what Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale has suggested that we carry out an amendment not to make a monster out of the clerk. If you give one individual to be the one controlling after removing it from the county executive and from the county treasury, then we will be creating another monster in the assembly. It will not do well to MCAs whom we are targeting to empower so that they can properly oversight the executive. I hope you will consider that proposal by Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale. I just stood up to support what you are doing. It is a great job. It is following some history. I hope that this is one of the cornerstones of our role of strengthening devolution and we will do more. I saw a committee of this House negotiating with the National Assembly on the funds. That kind of ongoing negotiation is portraying that this Senate is very serious on strengthening devolution. We cannot oversight the county executives if they do not get proper allocation of money. We must first make sure that money goes there and then we follow it to see that it is properly implemented in the service of our people. Thank you for the opportunity. I fully support this Bill with the amendments."
}