Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1565845,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1565845/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 260,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Instead of saying that we will not give more money to counties because they will misappropriate the funds, go for the people that are misappropriating those funds and charge them in a court of law so that we do not punish Kenyans who are supposed to be enjoying the fruits of devolution by the lazy argument, that if we give more money to counties, then the governors and their cronies will steal the money. On the issue of the sharing of revenue to county governments and national Government, I wish this argument would sink and sink well. There is a very big misplaced notion that the national Government can allocate money to county governments. That is a notion that we must really deal with. I do not know what has happened to a Bill that I had proposed to separate the Ministry of Finance and National Treasury. I think it is still being worked on, I do not know. Surely, it can never be that the national Government will decide how much money will be given to county governments. That is not their work to do. The decision as to how much money goes to each level of government is a decision of Parliament. The last time I checked, Parliament is defined as the Senate and the National Assembly. So, this matter sits properly where it is. It is us, elected leaders of the national legislature, to decide the division of revenue between the two levels of government, the national Government and the county governments. So, what the National Treasury can do is just make a submission like any other stakeholder would make a submission, on how the monies should be shared. It should never be lost on us, as legislators and as leaders in this country, that this is our responsibility. This is not the responsibility of the national Government to determine and decide how much money will go to county governments. Another issue is that I want to address governors. We spend much time on the floor of this House trying to push as much as we can to allocate funds that are commensurate with the functions allocated to county governments. At times when we are negotiating and pushing for more funds, more often than not, the governors would strike a deal at some organization called Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) and decide to settle for less. Just by that stroke of decision, our people begin to suffer lower allocations. On this one, I plead with our governors to sit back and wait for the Senate to fight for allocation to counties because that is a core responsibility and function of the Senate. As I conclude, the CRA has a responsibility and a duty of care to ensure the success of devolution. One of the greatest things and assignments that the CRA should have undertaken by now, more than 15 years into devolution, is the aspect of costing devolved functions. I do not know why it has taken forever for the CRA to do proper costing of devolved functions so that we stop groping in the dark. This is so that when we say we want to finance a devolved function such as agriculture in the 47 counties in the country, how much money is needed to be allocated to the counties to deal with matters such as agriculture or health? The CRA must be called out to move with speed and ensure that they cost devolved functions. On the indication of the percentages that should go to each level of"
}