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{
    "id": 228476,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/228476/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 170,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kajembe",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 163,
        "legal_name": "Ramadhan Seif Kajembe",
        "slug": "ramadhan-kajembe"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I want to talk about structures in our local authorities. Our local authorities countrywide are in a mess. You will find shanties in our cities. They are allowed by our city fathers. If you move around big cities like Nairobi and Mombasa today, you will find that the city centres are surrounded by unauthorised structures, and that nobody is doing anything to rectify the situation. That is because some of the mayors of our cities are not competent enough to run them. Therefore, I fully support His Excellency the President's proposal to have mayors and their deputies elected directly by the people. Doing so will reduce corruption in our local authorities. What happens currently is that when a councillor wants to become the mayor of a city, he is required to buy councillors to his side. He is supposed to take councillors to a certain place with full security. It is very expensive for one to become a mayor of any local authority in this country. April 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 301 So, I fully support the President's proposal to have mayors and their deputies elected by wananchi themselves. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is also very important to raise the education standard requirement in order for one to be allowed to contest a seat in a local authority. In the past, anybody could become a councillor irrespective of whether he is literate in Kiswahili and English or not. We should have good structures in our local authorities. Under the Local Authorities Act, Cap.265, it is a requirement that local authorities tell their citizens how much revenue they have collected and how that revenue has been utilised. Today, we do not get such information from our local authorities. We are not told anything about their budgets. They are supposed to publish their budgets, so that wananchi can know what their respective local authorities do with the money they generate."
}