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"speaker_name": "Mr. Khamasi",
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"legal_name": "Daniel Lyula Khamasi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, for giving me a chance to contribute to this very important Motion. The Ministry of Local Government is very important. This is the first attempt by the Government to devolve power. We should, therefore, try everything possible to perfect that exercise, so that power can be devolved. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have too many local authorities in the country, some of which are completely unviable. Some of my friends here have suggested that we should pay councillors from the Consolidated Fund. I wonder whether they have done their arithmetic well. My view is that we should restructure the local authorities in the country. We must amalgamate many of them, bringing them to a sizeable level, and then propose on how to pay councillors from the Consolidated Fund. As of now, the Government should not pay them from the Consolidated Fund because they are very many. I want to congratulate the Minister for moving this Motion ably, and for what he is doing under the Nairobi City Council, with regard to cleanness. I hope that is not because we will be having a conference of cities in this capital city of Nairobi. It is should be something we can maintain. We must keep our cities clean. The activities that have been going on in our city in terms of cleaning, incentives and getting rid of unauthorised structures is really commendable. At no time shall we have enough land in this city, to be allocated to every person who comes to this city as a hawker. All the hawkers cannot get land to operate from when we are trying to relocate them to the right places. The tendency has been to reallocate a certain number of hawkers land to operate from, but as soon as we are done with the exercise, the following weekend, we have hundreds of them coming into the city. When you tell them to go to the right place, they tell you that they want to be allocated land. Where will the City Council of Nairobi get land to allocate to hawkers who come into the city in hundreds every other month? Let us get rid of hawkers and put them in the right place. Those who have created unauthorised structures should be removed from the city. It was very shameful for a Minister of Government to wake up early one morning and come to Nairobi to stop an exercise that was aimed at trying to clean our city. That painted a very bad picture on the part of the Government. The Minister came to the city very early in the morning to stop an exercise which had been authorised by another Minister. Just imagine what that shows about this Government. It is shameful! Shame on that Minister who woke up very early in the morning to try and stop an exercise that was right. My colleagues have talked about LATF. Kenyans have been focusing on the CDF which is about 2.5 per cent of our revenue. We would like to call upon Kenyans and the Kenyan Press to focus on what is going on with the LATF. Nobody seems to be speaking about it, yet it is a substantial amount of taxpayers' money. It is necessary that the Kenyan Press and Kenyan public pay equal attention to what is going on with the LAFT, as they are doing with the CDF. I want to talk briefly about the law governing the elections of chairmen of county councils and mayors of municipal councils, which portrays a very bad picture on the part of this Government. It is very shameful to see councillors being herded into hotels and being confined for several days, dining and wining on the accounts of possible candidates, and it is dehumanising. It is done before an election and is being voluntarily accepted by aspiring councillors. That creates a very bad picture on the part of our leaders in the county councils. Let us amend the Act that governs their elections. I urge the Minister to move very fast and bring an amendment to this House so that we can elect a mayor, once, for the duration that the council is in force. 2564 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 2, 2006 In terms of allocations, I want to admit that in the eight years I have been in this House, I have not seen a penny being allocated to the local market of my constituency. This time round, at least, the Minister has given us Kshs5 million. I will not argue in the same manner my colleagues have argued, by saying that it is very little. I would like to thank him for doing that and urge those hon. Members who think that Kshs3 million that has been allocated to them is too little, to donate it to Shinyalu. I would be very happy to receive it and do some work with it there. All I ask the Minister is to look at the allocation again and do something about it. The rates from natural resources that are collected by the local governments, particulary rents collected at the Kakamega Forest, is something which the Kakamega County Council has been denied for a long time. Right now, the money adds up to many millions of shillings. I would like the Minister, who I petition with the chairman of the county council, to look into the matter and make sure that there is proper division of the rates that come from natural resources in different county councils of this country. I beg to support."
}