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{
"id": 1505557,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1505557/?format=api",
"text_counter": 173,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13162,
"legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
"slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
},
"content": "It must be put on record that the first time this matter went into mediation, we were led by the Senator for the great County of Meru, who is today sitting on the Chair. We had a conversation with our brothers in the lower House. We had a very scientific approach, and we were able to convince them that the right amount of money that should go to county governments should not go below Kshs400 billion. We wanted more, but we were able to convince our brothers to settle on Kshs401 billion. It was not voodoo. It was scientific. We could account for where every single additional shilling was going into. We were able to demonstrate that there was non-discretionary expenditure, some that was not part of the county-integrated development plans of our 47 counties. One such was the county aggregation and industrial parks, where each county was required to commit Kshs250 million, and the national Government would commit a similar amount. It was not the priority of all the counties. Of course, it is a very good idea, but even good ideas need to be prioritized. We had the community health promoters, who had been put in place pursuant to the Primary Health Care Act, which this House passed while sitting in Turkana County. We ended up in a situation where you had more than 100,000 community health promoters, whose salary, half would be paid by the county government and the other half by the national Government. That is the most absurd arrangement I have ever seen when it comes to payment of anybody who is working for the public. At times, the county has paid the Kshs5,000, and the national Government has not paid the matching Kshs5,000, and so an old woman who is a community health promoter is unable to service her Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) loans, and take her children to school, because they are still waiting for the national Government to send their share of her salary. Even in our households, you can imagine if you had a situation where the gardener, half his salary was to be paid by the husband and half to be paid by the wife. I am sure the wife would always pay and the man would never pay. That is the situation our community health promoters are going through, whereby, the county governments are paying the Kshs5,000, but there are significant delays, and that affects delivery. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we speak, the Governor of Homa Bay County is at a dispensary called Nyakiao Health Center. Nyakiao Health Center happens to be in my village of birth. We visited that dispensary three days ago, and she committed to come back today, and as we speak, she is there to launch the facility. The facility has only one nurse and one other permanent employee. The rest of the services are rendered by the community health promoters. Right now, we are enrolling people into the new universal health coverage scheme, the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). One significant thing that happens when people come to these facilities is that when they are enrolling into Social Health Authority (SHA), there is a means-based testing. This is being driven and being run by our community health promoters. How do we expect these people to be motivated and highly driven, if here at the Senate and National Assembly level, we are not granting additional or sufficient money to be able to pay for their perks? That is why I disagree with this mediated report. 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."
}