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{
    "id": 1551982,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551982/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 765,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sifuna",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13599,
        "legal_name": "Sifuna Edwin Watenya",
        "slug": "sifuna-edwin-watenya"
    },
    "content": "nature that require special expertise. I can assure you that the matter that was handled by this so-called expert lawyer that is being paid Kshs1.3 billion can very well be handled by a young lawyer who would not demand the same fees especially where the matter is resolved in the manner in which this one was resolved. The question of expertise is being abused. I have every faith in every advocate who was qualified to be able to handle any matter. Although we do not discount the value of experience, I insist that this thing called expertise is being misused and it is the reason you find counties justifying the need to hire external counsel. They are saying there is low remuneration for the in-house counsel working in counties and insufficient budget to the office of the county attorney. If we took the Kshs1.3 billion that we are supposed to pay this external lawyer and put it in the office of the county attorney, I am sure this insufficiency of budget and the other issues would not arise. Madam Temporary Speaker I would have loved for us to agree in total with the petitioner, but of course they will say, oh you are cutting out external legal practitioners from business that it is unconstitutional and unfair. I hope that the JLAC committee and even the committee of Devolution and Inter governmental Relations will sit down with the Law Society of Kenya. It is a good thing that we have a very good President now at the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). There are things that are happening in our counties that are not acceptable. You will find that the lawyer resides in Nairobi and is always complaining about the state of roads in his estate yet he is taking Kshs1.3 billion for himself. Nairobi City County gets Kshs20 billion Kenya every year in terms of Exchequer. How can you, as one person, take Kshs1 billion out of Kshs20 billion then you want to complain about the roads in Karen? It is not fair. It is absolutely unfair and the LSK should have a conversation with its members. Whereas we do not want to lock them out of county business, it is unconscionable for one person to take such an amount from a county that is struggling to buy drugs for its residents. I am a Member of the County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC). Nairobi City County has the bulk of the pending bills when it comes to legal bills at Kshs20 billion, but this question is repeated in all counties. We have instances where county governors have paid lawyers for simple and straightforward matters. We have often asked them for justification of paying external lawyers instead of using the capacity that they have at the county government. There are questions of how those lawyers are procured. If you look at Nairobi, for instance, once the lawyers have gotten execution orders, the chief officer of finance in Nairobi is always in the cells. They always get orders to arrest her every Friday to force the County Government to pay, yet the County Government has no money to pay these people. Even if they jail the Chief Officer of Finance for three or six months, their money will not be paid. We have this specter of Kshs20 billion in unpaid legal bills and it is unmanageable. I know that many counties have set up task forces to look into the veracity of some of these claims but court in Kitale said that only the Auditor General can tell us which pending bills are payable and which ones are not payable. It stated that the task forces established by counties were illegal. In Nairobi City County, we had a pending 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."
}