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{
"id": 1570343,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1570343/?format=api",
"text_counter": 234,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Secondly, we must ask ourselves about the blue economy. We just had Madaraka Day celebrations in Homa Bay County. The theme was about blue economy. Sen. Roba, I am not sure whether when we take land at 8 per cent, we are also looking at the concerns of people with vast water bodies. This is not just a Homa Bay, Kisumu, Siaya, Migori and Busia thing. It also affects Turkana, Marsabit, Mombasa, Kwale, Lamu and Kilifi. There are residents of Mfangano Island in Lake Victoria where I come from. Mfangano is quite a big island, but the gap between Mfangano and the mainland is thousands of acres or hundreds of kilometres, yet they demand services. They want hospitals, markets and roads. Do we have a component here that can accommodate the blue economy? Thirdly, we should stop glorification of poverty. I have seen in the report by the Committee on Finance and Budget that poverty has a weight of 12 per cent. It is the CRA that proposed 14 per cent. Are we incentivizing poverty? What if while Sen. Roba was a governor, he improved the lives of his people and his poverty index moved from “x” to “y”? In other words, his people are less poor. Why should he get less money? Should he not be incentivized for pulling more people out of poverty? I do not how we will ever get to put that as a criterion. Otherwise, as it appears, we are glorifying and rewarding poverty, so that the poorer you are, the more money you should get. There needs to be an instrument for incentivizing. I spoke about data accuracy. We cannot be a leader in Sub Saharan Africa yet we are still complaining about the data that is held by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). I have seen in the report that KNBS convinced the committee that their data is verifiable and accurate. I thought that the only data we should dispute in this country are Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) numbers. When it comes to KNBS data and revenue sharing, people even went to court over the issue of population census. It is untidy that we have got a court order nullifying the results of the population in a certain region in this country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, allow me to say this. Recently, the President talked about removal of vetting for issuance of Identification (ID) cards in the border counties. That is not a North Eastern problem alone. I was also forced to go for vetting when I was applying for my Identity Card (ID) because we neighbour Uganda. So, this suspicion about Northern Kenya around population, is part of systemic discrimination of certain parts of this country. It is not just Northern Kenya, it affects us in Homa Bay, Migori, Busia and other counties that border Lake Victoria. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, can we demand for more money to go to counties? The Constitution requires us to base it on the most recent accounts. The most recent accounts, going by Article 203 should be the revenue accounts for Financial Year (FY)2023/2024. The National Treasury is trying to convince us to use 2021. That is unconstitutional. If we had Kshs450 billion, then we will not be in this situation. Could we, as a House, agree even though some of us are in Broad-based Government--- One key point in the Broad-based Government was support for devolution. It is Kshs450 billion. That is what we signed for. We did not sign up for Broad-based for small markets here, a small stadium there, a small road there---"
}