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{
    "id": 1537770,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1537770/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 268,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Osotsi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13588,
        "legal_name": "Osotsi Godfrey Otieno",
        "slug": "osotsi-godfrey-otieno"
    },
    "content": "I am also very uncomfortable with the idea of having a county library services development committee in each county. We are fighting our counties because of the high wage bill. Every county has surpassed their wage bill limit of 35 percent. Most are even beyond 80 percent because of the expenditure on employees and people which is a recurring expenditure. If we develop our laws, and in those laws, we call for the establishment of committees with a secretariat, we are simply ballooning the wage bill. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, our role is to oversight these counties so as to ensure that they comply with the law, especially on the wage bill limit of 35 percent. However, when we pass this kind of bills, we contradict our position as a Senate. Therefore, I would want to dissuade the proposal of this Bill to drop the idea of a committee. You do not need a committee to decide for you which book to buy. You do not need a committee to arrange books in a shelf or to manage a library. We have a department with a CECM, chief officers and staff. What will they be doing? That is their work. They need to coordinate and manage that. I would like to dissuade the Mover of this Bill to drop the idea of the committees. This will just give people an opportunity to earn, get allowances and basically to do nothing. This problem is even coupled with the AI technology. You will have a library there that is not functioning because people do not go there and you have a committee that is earning allowances for doing nothing. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I implore that we drop the idea of a committee and the functions of the committee be handled by the relevant CECM of that function of libraries. In that way, we will be saving our counties money that can be directed to other functions because our counties are becoming employment bureaus. If you have a situation where 80 percent although some counties go up to 90 percent of the budget going to recurrent expenditure, then we are not doing well in terms of devolution. Therefore, the Bills and policies that we pass must be designed in such a way that we will not be pushing counties to incur more recurrent expenditure because it beats the purpose of having counties where there is no development happening and people are just working and earning salaries. Employment is good but that was not the major reason why counties were created. The major reason counties were created was to become economic units for the development of various counties and the overall development of the country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I therefore inform Commissioner Korir that the idea of the committee may look good, but it has a cost implication. Also, if you look at the functions, you wonder why we need to have a committee. The same CECM who is supposed to be managing this library will be now a committee member earning a salary and also earning an allowance in the same committee. It does not make sense at all. The major thing is the aspect of technology. If we do not think technology, technology will be ahead of us. Technology does not wait for us. Yesterday, when I was contributing to a statement here, I said that for this country to grow in terms of technology, we will need to look at the way the Ministry of Information, Communications and Telecommunications is being run. I said this Ministry is being run by people who are clueless, they are not Information and Communications Technology (ICT) experts. We, therefore, cannot make progress. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only.A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and Audio Services,Senate."
}