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{
    "id": 1501853,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1501853/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 55,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Senate and the National Assembly Members were gathered in fulfillment of Articles 132(1)(c)(1) and 240(7) of the Constitution. It is extremely important that His Excellency the President gives an account of what the State of our Nation is to the representatives of the people that were gathered in the Chamber of the National Assembly. I appreciate that the wording in the Motion I am moving is a recording of the appreciation of the House. In furtherance of our responsibilities as representatives of the people, we will debate and interrogate this speech and if there are points of convergence or divergence, we will see what can we do about it. This is the account of the State of the Nation as the President sees it. He has backed his statement with facts and figures of what he feels are the indicators of where Kenya stands today according to him. As representatives of the people, we are duty-bound to take time to read through all the 81 paragraphs and interrogate this statement. I will beg not to go through each of the paragraphs because I understand how difficult at times we find ourselves in. It is at this point that I wish that the House takes note of the fact that today at the Senate Business Committee (SBC), we agreed that in respect of extremely urgent business that is before us, though by our Standing Orders we have three days to debate this speech, we want to push as hard as possible to grant an opportunity to every Senator that wants to speak to this speech and conclude it by tomorrow late afternoon. This is because we want to leave the remainder of the evening tomorrow as well as Thursday and next week for consideration of the mediated version of the Division of Revenue Act (DORA), which has just been tabled this afternoon, and the County Government Additional Allocation Bill, an extremely important Bill that is presently before the Mediation Committee. Those Bills are yet to be concluded. I do not see Sen. Tabitha in the House. She is the Chairperson of that Committee. I do not know if there is any Member who sits in that committee. This is a Bill that will unlock close to Kshs60 billion on additional allocation to our county governments. Immediately after the passage of the DORA, we have to do the County Allocation of Revenue Bill, which is the county-specific fund allocation to all the 47 county governments, and eventually do the Cash Disbursement Schedule. All that has to be done between this week and the rise of the House on Thursday, next week. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I deviated a little bit to appraise the House to appreciate how much little time we have in the next six days of sitting and how much business we have to transact and the extremely important nature of the business that is before us. I do not know how you will face your constituents in Lodwar over the long recess period from December all the way to February, Sen. Lomenen, without having passed the DORA and CARA. We will have extremely failed as a House. It is my humble plea that we manage time prudently in the next remaining few days so that we conclude on that responsibility. I made that point to excuse myself from going through each of the thematic areas that the President covered. As the Mover of the Motion, I want to set the pace, so that I cover the areas that I found extremely important in the speech and leave the rest to my colleagues to give their perspective and views on what they found to be important in the speech by His Excellency the President. 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."
}