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"id": 1505484,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Onyonka",
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"legal_name": "Onyonka Richard Momoima",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity, again, to continue with the debate we were having this morning. We were discussing the mediated version of the Division of Revenue Bill. I had nearly finished my conversation, but there were about three points I wanted to raise. I wanted to plead with my colleagues in this House. This country is not poor. For all intents and purposes, if you look at the budget we have, it is a budget that can run itself. The total amount the county governments are getting for the last 10 years from the Auditor-General and the Control Budget (CoB) reports, has been about Kshs1.6 trillion that has gone to the villages, presumably. Nonetheless, again, this is the time when the disease that we suffer from, as a people, where we consider that personal success is the driver behind the change that we need in Africa, or when we continue to think that we need to solve the problems that we have and outsiders are going to solve them for us. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the amount of money that governors have received in the last 10 years, since the promulgation of the Constitution, is money that by now would have made Kenya a very successful, developed African country. The problem is the disease of stealing public money and the idea of getting friends to control the resources of this republic, and particularly the governors who have made it a habit of thinking that all Kenyans are stupid. That is why they coordinate and organize their friends to do contracts and make sure that we have no medicines in the hospitals. They come and fire all the technocrats that were employed by the previous regime, whether this technocrat was a good officer or not, and then they bring their friends and relatives who control the money that they are going to steal. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you know cases of how many of our friends who actually came from very poor backgrounds, are candidates who have run for governorship. There were basically people who came from very humble backgrounds. You would think that individuals who have been exposed to this kind of life of denial and rejection, would pick this country up, put it together and make sure that we spend the resources we are supposed to, to try and change the trajectory of where this country is going to. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, what do we do? Of course, we take everything. You find our hospitals do not have medicine. The roads are done poorly. As I speak, like in my County, Kisii, it is the Chinese companies that are doing roads when the locals have nothing. Then when governors are told to pay the pending bills, they void more than 1,900 payments under the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). How can you void government payments 1,600 times? It means you are stealing. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), which is the institution that is supposed to manage our bad manners and the stealing we are doing, are all compromised and they keep complaining that I am hitting at them. I hope that the incoming director will pick up his bootstraps and do something because, our country is haemorrhaging. Governors need to know we are their friends. We are willing to add them more money. Members of Parliament must understand that we do not want to take their kitties, but we are behaving badly. We are misspending state money and the 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."
}