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{
    "id": 1520247,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1520247/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mandera South, UDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Abdul Haro",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "about the background from the colonial period to the successive Kenyan governments up to 2010, when we enacted the new Constitution that gave us Article 204 on Equalisation Fund. The Fund, as it has been said by most Members, has been established under Article 204(1). The fund takes up 0.5 per cent of all revenue collected by the national Government, and it is supposed to cover four main areas, namely, water, roads, health, and electricity. The politics of high-potential areas and low-potential areas, and Sessional Paper No.10 have been referred to by many Members. Sessional Paper No.10 envisaged a situation where if you developed high-potential areas, development would trickle down to low-potential areas. This has never happened in 61 years since Independence and that is why the Equalisation Fund came into being. We are informed that Ksh7.4 billion of the first policy has not been disbursed. The second policy has not been implemented. I am told the CRA is thinking about a third policy. I am wondering whether it makes sense to think of a third policy when we have not even reviewed the first and the second policies. This is where the challenge lies. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I will not repeat what most of the honourable Members have said, but I will say like it has been intimated by one of the Members, that marginalisation is a very bad thing. It is not something that you would wish anybody to go through. Not any Kenyan should be subjected to any form of marginalisation in whatever manifestation it shows itself. So, when we are talking about the Equalisation Fund and the 14 counties that were defined by the drafters of the Constitution…By the way, Article 260 of the Constitution also defines which these marginalised areas are and who these marginalised communities are. So, it is very clear. So, when the drafters of the Constitution identified the 14 counties and went ahead and defined what marginalisation means, it was not in vain. Not anybody wants to be identified as a marginalised person. It is a bad tag to have, especially after 61 years of Independence. Therefore, it is my wish that through this Bill, when it comes to the Committee stage, we will carry out all the necessary amendments to make sure the Equalisation Fund comes closer to the original thinking of the drafters of the Constitution. If there is any recommendation that one can make in terms of how to improve it, I think I will be one of the people who will have amendments, especially on the proposal of how it is supposed to be implemented. The Constitution says the Fund can be implemented either directly or indirectly through the counties. Since there is tug of war between the counties, the national Government, and other stakeholders, I agree with the proposal that was proposed earlier that 50 per cent of this Fund can be implemented directly by the board at the national level, and the other 50 per cent can be implemented indirectly through the counties, so that we can have a win-win situation. This is because the poor people in marginalised counties are not compartmentalised in the boxes that we try to put them in. They need water, electricity, health services and roads. They are not interested in this compartmentalisation and push and pull between the different levels of the Government and stakeholders."
}