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"id": 195881,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wamalwa",
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"legal_name": "Eugene Ludovic Wamalwa",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I beg to support the Motion. May I say that the Minister has done a good job in not only satisfying the legal requirements in the appointment of the Board, but as I can see from the list, there is gender and regional balance. All the requirements of the law have been satisfied. It is, indeed, a great development in our country to have this opportunity for the House to not only scrutinize the appointments, but also to approve them. Indeed, it is something that we hope, with the completion of the constitutional review process and delivering of a new Constitution to this country, we will be able to do before the sun sets on the life of the Tenth Parliament. We will have a Constitution that will enable and empower this House to approve not only members appointed to the CDF Board, but also all other senior appointments in Government. I believe that, that day will come soon. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding the issue of devolution, I think the CDF was one of the noblest and success stories of the Ninth Parliament. It is a good idea. But I believe this House - the Tenth Parliament, will make it even greater. I am happy that the Minister has noted the necessity of making further amendments. We do appreciate that already, the CDF Act had been amended. But it is necessary that further amendments be made. I am glad that there are reforms that will be brought to this House. We are very keen to see that we have the necessary amendments to strengthen legal structures and controls, to ensure that accountability and transparency is achieved. I come from a constituency that is very notorious. The CDF National Office is aware of that. In fact, we had the tragedy of losing the Accounts Manager of Saboti CDF. We are very glad to see that, indeed, reforms are on the way and soon, we will have the controls strengthened to ensure that the peoples' money is properly administered and projects that will benefit the people are achieved. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, indeed, we do have a problem of staffing. The calibre of staff will go also with the amount of money available. The Act allows only 3 per cent for office operations and staffing. We believe that amongst the reforms that the Minister will bring to this House - and we will be recommending - is that the 3 per cent, after enhancing structures, will also be enhanced to enable Members to get qualified staff that can run those offices. As part of the reforms that we are looking at, we will also be proposing that, indeed, after the strengthening of structures, the 2.5 per cent already set by the Act be enhanced, so that this money can continue developing, and reaching, every corner of Kenya. I agree with the Minister that we need to strengthen the aspect of monitoring and evaluation of CDF projects. This will be possible if there is enhancement of the funds available to the CDF at the constituency level to ensure that there is enough money to strengthen this function of monitoring and evaluation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am glad to note that the Minister has touched on the issue of auditing. This is an area that we need to strengthen considerably. From the experience of my constituency, I can say that it will be a great thing to have regular audits so as to discover any misuse of public funds. If we have an independent audit unit at the district level that will carry out regular audits, this will be one way of ensuring that money is properly utilised. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}