Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1566701,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1566701/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 118,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I hope Sen. Mandago together with the Members who serve in the Committee on Health, including Sen. Omogeni, will lead us home. They must at some point lead this House into making the right decision. They should feel bad on behalf of all Kenyans who watch doctors, nurses, health workers and all these health professionals who come outside the Senate each and every year. Today, they were there in the morning. They may be back tomorrow and maybe they are still there. It is not fair. This Committee must lead us, as a House, into making certain decisions that will resolve these issues. Mr. Speaker, Sir, previously, we were told about the challenges that were there and the reason they could not be considered jointly is that healthcare is devolved. Therefore, they would be handled by their individual governors depending on how they would manage their politics. That cannot be allowed to obtain for too long. Mr. Speaker, Sir, lastly, I leave this as food for thought for Sen. Roba, Sen. Tabitha Mutinda and my good friend, Sen. (Dr.) Boni Khalwale, as well as the Members who serve in the Committee on Finance and Budget. I was before their Committee this morning on a certain matter. Perhaps, it has reached a time where we may want to lead the country into issuing a devolution bond, the same way we issue infrastructure bonds. I raised this two years ago. It was not picked up, but I still insist that we may want to consider that because we know on average how much we consume per year. We can project based on what we have consumed in the last 10 years and what the annual increment usually looks like. It will make more sense because I hear people say that we should separate the Treasury or we should do this or the other. However, if the resources are not there, they are not there. We must find ways, just the same way the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports and the Ministry of Roads and Transport have figured out how to fund their roads and find ways through securitization. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we can as well issue a devolution bond through which the National Treasury pays back in the subsequent month on a yearly basis, so that we know for a fact that this pool of resources is purely dedicated to devolved units. At a date and agreed time of the month, counties receive that which is owed to them. Otherwise, many businesses will continue to crash on account of supplying to a county government that you know will never pay you. People will go without salaries. Counties will be forced to borrow to pay and meet the day-to-day subsistence obligations, therefore, incurring additional costs. I, therefore, plead with the Committee on Finance and Budget to lead us into a better solution other than this one of having to wait for Exchequer releases and waiting for resources to be collected. When you have a shock in the system like we had last year with the Gen Z protests and the court decisions with regard to the Finance Bill, when counties stayed up to almost December without receiving any significant funding, then that cannot be the way and the basis upon which you run a county government. Mr. Speaker, Sir, something must give and I believe as a House, it is not beyond us to think what will be a better solution than the current system. At least, we are all in agreement that this current system does not work in the way that it was envisioned. With those remarks, I beg to support and hope that we can conclude on this matter as well as the other business that is before us. I am also happy that there are many Members who are back in the House right now, as opposed to earlier in the day. As we 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."
}