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{
"id": 1502719,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1502719/?format=api",
"text_counter": 151,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cherarkey",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13217,
"legal_name": "Cherarkey K Samson",
"slug": "cherarkey-k-samson"
},
"content": "I will borrow the words the nominee of the African Union Chairman (AUC), the party leader of Sen. Richard Onyonka when he read his statement and said that the role of parliament, both the National Assembly and the Senate, should be and must be oversight. It is time we totally scrapped NG-CDF. There is no need. How can you oversight money that you are spending? Why not take all that money and give it to counties and then all of us do oversight? Let them oversight national agencies and we oversight counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, even on this RMLF, they want to add the Kshs11 billion to themselves over the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) and the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) is unconstitutional. I am happy that people in court are arguing that KeRRA and KURA are unconstitutional. Today, as we speak, MPs have held KeRRA hostage to do their bidding. Therefore, the NG-CDF issue, where every constituency receives over Kshs100 million and the misnomer I hear on the streets is that NG-CDF does more or we have seen NG-CDF and yet, it was started in 2003. It is time we consolidated all the funds, do the Division of Revenue to the national Government and counties and oversight both. I also agree with the principle of the AUC candidate Raila Odinga when he says that, let MPs do oversight of the funds that they appropriate in the budget making process. I will do pro bono legal advice on the Floor of the House to all Kenyans, that the President and the national Executive are not involved in the budget making process. The budget making process is the exclusive domain of the National Assembly and the Senate. It was decided in Petition No.3 of 2013 by the Supreme Court. So, we should correct this misnomer that the Executive or the President do not participate in any way in the budget making process. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, counties continue with the issue of pending bills. Most of our businessmen in Garissa, Nandi, and Kisii have died while following up their pending payments with counties. As at June, 2024, counties owed pending bills of Kshs158 billion, including in Garissa. Your businessmen and women are suffering because they cannot be paid by counties. I saw the Governor for Kakamega telling us that the biggest danger to devolution is the Controller of Budget (CoB). It is not. What governors are doing is voiding payments. They take money to pay for Haji, but pay Aaron and the CoB must be on lookout to ensure proper approvals of the money. We will not allow governors to run away with corruption. I saw the Chairperson for the Committee on Finance and Budget, and I became worried. I did not know what he was talking about. The biggest problems in the functionalities of counties are governors because they void payments and steal the money. After the resolution of this House on pending bills, we said that money should be paid across the counties, the Kshs158 billion as of June, 2024. No one has paid. The other day, there was a misnomer by governors and I was embarrassed. They were saying that they have not received money. When the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning released his report, they had received up to October, Kshs158 billion. They are yet to release November, but they are lying to Kenyans led by the Chair of the CoG, the Governor for Wajir County, Ahmed Abdullahi and yet, Wajir is dysfunctional. 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."
}