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"id": 192354,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/192354/?format=api",
"text_counter": 157,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Githae",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Local Government",
"speaker": {
"id": 159,
"legal_name": "Robinson Njeru Githae",
"slug": "robinson-githae"
},
"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, thank you for that clarification. I am speaking in my own right as the hon. Member for Ndia Constituency, and I thought we were all equal. June 25, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1413 I was saying that whereas we appreciate the hard work that the Minister has done, to come up with this substantial Budget, we should have passed this Motion yesterday. We need this money, so that the new Ministries can be given a preliminary Budget to start working on their programmes. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we must accept that the way forward, in effecting devolution, can be done through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). At the moment, CDF is composed of 2.5 per cent of the total Government revenue. I think we need to recommend to the Minister to start increasing that amount from 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent, 7.5 per cent and 10 per cent. That is the way forward. Mr. Speaker, Sir, again, if you look at our neighbouring countries, they are one step ahead of us. They have no controversies about districts, constituencies and Local Government Ministries, basically because there is a convergence of all those three items. One way in which we can proceed with devolution is to convert all the constituencies into districts and local authorities. That way, the constituency then would be the basis of allocation of Government funds. To me, that is the way to go about it. We need to do a proper study, so that we can do a proper devolution. We need to take power to the lowest possible organ of the Government. One way in which we can do that is to recognise constituencies. The CDF, bursaries and HIV/AIDS money are all based on the constituencies. Therefore, even the Government allocation should be done based on constituencies. If we were to go that way, then this clamour for new districts would come to an end. It would mean that once a constituency is created, it automatically becomes a district and a local government area. To me, that is the way to go. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I must also urge the Minister for Finance to bring some amendments to the Finance Bill and on CDF. We have constructed schools, but we do not have enough teachers. We cannot pay the teachers. In my constituency, we have put up a secondary school in every primary school. We wonder what to do! Do we construct more schools or what do we do? What we need now are teachers. At the moment, whenever I construct a new school, we only get a principal and one teacher. The rest are being paid by the parents. So, we keep on talking about free secondary education but, in reality, it is not practical unless the schools are provided with teachers by the Government. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the same applies to dispensaries. We have constructed many dispensaries. In my constituency, for example, we have three dispensaries which are fully built, with power, but they are not functioning because they have no staff. The CDF Committee should find a way of making use of that money to pay nurses and teachers, so that the institutions that we have built do not become white elephants. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I also commend the Minister for giving each constituency Kshs1 million for sports. But it is not very clear how that money is going to be disbursed. Again, I would urge him to send that money to the constituencies. We are the people on the ground. We know what is happening there. We know the teams that are on the ground. Therefore, we can sort out some of those issues. That is a good beginning but, Kshs1 million is not enough. If you decide to buy games kits for about 20 teams, that money is not enough. But it is a good measure. We appreciate what the Minister for Finance is doing. Mr. Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support this Motion."
}