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"id": 1565479,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1565479/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "government. My argument is that at a 4.5 per cent fiscal deficit, then Kshs430billion is possible. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, should it be reduced downwards, then we can have a conversation about the figures that I hear being mentioned by our colleagues in the National Assembly because it means there is limited fiscal space. We cannot have a situation where we are allowing the National Treasury to borrow colossal amounts of money while sending to counties very few resources. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you will recall and I wish Sen. M. Kajwang, the Chair of the County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC) was here with us. That due to the court's ruling, we met here towards the end of the session. We received the audit reports of many of our counties and passed them in one afternoon. We raised comments and said, we shall find mechanisms through ways and means of addressing that particular challenge. You will recall that we, as a Senate, raised a concern that if all the 47 county governments were business entities, we would be concerned that most or all of them are not growing. The rule of life is that if you are not growing, then you are actually dying. It only depends on the speed at which you are dying. It could be a quick one or a slow one. What are the indicators of growth? We said that many of our counties are not raising significant amounts of funds in own source revenue. I think it was about 34 out of 47 counties that are doing more than 50 per cent of their shareable revenue to pay recurrent expenditure. Actually less than 10 out of 47 counties, spend more than 25 per cent of their shareable revenue on actual development, which is the statutory edict as per the Fourth Schedule of the PFM Act and Regulation, 25. Besides, that is a conversation which I have kept on challenging my colleagues who serve in the Committee on Budget and Finance. I know the Vice-Chair is in the House, though she is not listening to what I am saying. I hope that one day they will lead this House into a proper conversation about what needs to happen. This is something that should be of concern to any Senator. It makes no sense, colleagues, to fight for Kshs400 or Kshs450 billion while 90 per cent of that fund ends up being misappropriated. Why should we fight to send Kshs450 billion, for example, to the counties, if more than 50 per cent goes to pay 300,000 or 400,000 citizens, to the exclusion of the millions of others? If you go to Meru County although I do not know what the population of Meru is, for example. However, simple mathematics, I want to believe maybe upwards of one and a half or nearly two million, because Meru is a fairly large county, let us give it 1.6 million. If out of your shareable revenue of upwards of Kshs10 billion, your governor ends up spending more than 50 per cent of it to pay employees who are barely 4,000 or 5,000 in that particular county, what are you telling the rest of the1.55 million citizens that do not work in the counties? I have been pushing that as a House, we must have this conversation. You know, it is simple and populist to say I have employed so-and-so. Nowadays, governors have found a new way of explaining. They hide behind very popular employment initiatives. I have picked young people and I have to employ them as revenue officers so that we get more revenue or I have picked nurses or this or the other. While it may sound logical, 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."
}