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"id": 184438,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/184438/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
"speaker": {
"id": 185,
"legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
"slug": "danson-mungatana"
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"content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to also make my contribution towards this Vote. First of all, may I thank the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government, Mr. Mudavadi for ably moving this Motion and for the manner in which he has so far conducted the affairs of this Ministry. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I support this Motion, but, as I have always said before, everything that is good can always be made better. I start with a few things that I would want to propose to the Minister. In terms of the personnel cost, the Minister has allocated a huge amount of money to cover the personnel costs and also cover a huge bill of Recurrent Expenditure. There is a very big problem in the SACCOs of municipalities and the salaries their members receive. SACCO dues are forever deducted from members' salaries but are never remitted to SACCOs. The Minister must take immediate action to remedy this situation, because it is continuing to portray a very inefficient system of central Government. His image as a Minister will be dented if this exploitation of the municipal workers continues. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have mentioned to the Minister, and I would like to put it on record, that we are not happy with the way the district allocations have been done for 2008/2009 Financial Year. If you look at the spread of the funds, I have complained before and I will continue to raise this issue, that there is unfair allocation of the funds from the Ministry. I am sure that if you take a cursory look at the way the district allocations have been made in the documents that have been circulated to all hon. Members, you will see clearly that there is a vast inequality and unfairness. That is the reason people become so bitter with the Government. We elect a Government today and tomorrow, everybody is annoyed with it. Look at the Coast Province on page three, for instance. There are only six projects there, and of these six projects, there is only one European Union (EU) project that is allocated money. If you look at various other regions, especially the region where the former Minister comes from, you will see multitudes of EU and GOK projects. That is not replicated in other regions. The same story is in North Eastern Province. Why should this be a song in this Parliament. Why should this continue to happen even when Parliament has talked against it many times? We need to have a fair allocation of resources. It continues to recur. We believe that the Deputy Prime Minister, who is a Deputy Prime Minister for all of us, should just look at this and make proper correction. We know October 14, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2685 that the Budget cycle will start immediately after we pass this Vote. He may not have been holding office at some stage, but this is gross unfairness. How can North Eastern Province, which is disadvantaged, have only five GOK projects and only two EU projects? This is not acceptable! That is why we need a change of the Constitution, so that a Minister who does a funny thing like this, we throw it out, so that they can go back and make proper corrections and bring back a budget that is acceptable to us. If you look at these allocations, in Coast Province, we have Mombasa, Kilifi, Lamu, Taveta and Voi. We have ten districts there. We do not even have the Tana Delta, where my constituency is located, here. What are we doing here? We cannot continue to let the bureaucrats in this Ministry replicating what they did last year and the year before. I hope that they are listening to us. We are tired of this kind of thing. They must sit down and look at what is happening in this country, and start being fair to the people of this nation. They all pay taxes. Can they do the correct thing and sleep well at night? That is why some of them die early. It is so annoying. They receive curses from all over. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is no justification as to why we cannot have new local authorities. The Government has demarcated new districts, and there is a reason why the new districts were demarcated. What we are asking is, if we have requested that local authorities be established, could the Minister move with haste so that we have local authorities in the areas where we want them functioning? I want to put it on record that in the Tana Delta, all the resources come from down the Delta, yet the County Council is up there in Tana River District, where there is nothing. People make funny decisions that affect us all the way down. Could we have our own County Council? I am sure many other Members of Parliament will raise this issue. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, in particular, I want to talk about the management of solid waste. In the County Council of Tana River, some few councillors sat down and passed a decision to pump dirty water and waste into the River Tana, and it is going to flow all the way to the Delta. Why? Because we do not have our own local authority. I have talked to the Minister; I am putting it on record that he must reverse these kinds of decisions with immediate effect. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for the time that he has taken to try and correct the imbalances that were created by the former Minister, who decided to arbitrarily give councillors nominations when we knew that no law was being followed. The current Minister for Local Government started the job and should finish it? I speak for NARC- Kenya. We want our slots back. I am putting it on record, so that when I approach him, I can take the HANSARD to him and say that he has agreed to give us back our Councillors. It is wrong. We cannot live under the tyranny of PNU. We want that thing corrected. We want the imbalances to be corrected with immediate effect. Let him just do it and then, if there is any problem, we would deal with it. This is our Parliament. We control this House. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is this question of street families. I thank the Minister for saying that he has put aside Kshs24 million. That programme started during the Ninth Parliament and we used to see a bit of activity. As we are talking now, there are many street children out there. We cannot see what that programme, which started three years ago, has done. It is a bad thing for our country. If that money is there, could we see that programme taking some shape? That brings me to the next point that I would like to make. In moving this Vote, the Minister has kept on asking for money to do this or that - all the good things. But he has not reported to us what happened to the monies that we passed last year. There are so many incomplete projects that we want completed. My time is gone but I would have liked to say some more. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}