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"speaker_name": "Mr. Syongo",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. If you listened to the way Kenyans debated the issue of devolution at the Bomas of Kenya, and looked at the impact of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), devolution is the way to go for this country and our people. 2566 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 2, 2006 We need to develop leadership and governance skills so that, institutions over which the Ministry of Local Government has superintendent authority, are able to deliver services to our people and are developed into centres of excellence in terms of governance and service delivery. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the interest and the heat generated as we debated the way we should restructure our society and our governance system at the devolution tents clearly indicated that Kenyans need devolution. The hon. Minister and his officers have a honourable task of nurturing the idea of devolution to make it a successful means of developing our nation and improving service delivery. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with an efficient devolution system, as represented by the various local authorities, I am convinced that many Kenyans are now convinced, that What the CDF has done in the last two years is much more than what the centralised system has done in 40 years of Independence. As a result of that, there is need to improve the leadership and managerial skills of our leaders at the local authorities level. There is need for them to cultivate a culture of accountability and transparency in the way they manage issues and resources. There is need for proper planning and implementation. Even more importantly, there is need for monitoring and auditing the resources allocated for developing grassroots institutions through Local Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF) and other sources. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe the reason why the 4 per cent that is given through LATF has much less impact than the 2.5 per cent that is given through the CDF is because of weak monitoring and accountability systems through the Ministry of Local Government. That is a challenge to the Minister and his officers. I support the Minister completely when he says that election of chairmen of various local authorities should be direct. That is the only way they can be answerable to the people who reside within their jurisdictions. Otherwise, we shall continue to be entertained by the kind of drama that we have seen of councillors fighting with chairs and others being locked up in hotels in order to go and vote for chairmen and mayors. This is a shame for our country. Kenyans do not deserve this. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to talk about the issue of equitability in the allocation of resources. The Government, through the local authorities, should impact positively and equitably throughout the nation. The Minister should consider seriously weaning off some of the old local authorities, so that we can nurture and support the young and youthful ones. When I look at the Development Vote, I feel that there is obviously a case for the revision of the figures. Local authorities which have been in place even before Independence are being given more money. It is high time that we weaned them off the list, so that we can have an affirmative action to bring up the more youthful local authorities. In most cases, the youthful local authorities were created where there were none or there was a long distance between the centres of local governance and the service delivery. I want to give an example of Suba County Council. This is probably one of the county councils that collected revenue and after adding to what was given to them through the Ministry, had a surplus of nearly Kshs2 million. It should be rewarded. Suba County Council is making a major difference in a jurisdiction that makes a major contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country through the fisheries sector. However, we have no roads in Suba County Council. We do not even have proper landing facilities for the fisheries. We also do not have proper markets for fish. I would like to believe that the Minister will re-look into the distribution of the Development Vote. Last year, nothing was allocated to us. This year, still nothing has been allocated to us. I believe the Minister is a fair man and he is going to look at the amount of money that should rightfully be allocated to Suba County Council, so that it can catch up with the older county councils. August 2, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2567 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is a problem in terms of sustainability of local authorities. We must contend with this fact. I believe that the long term objective of the Ministry of Local Government is to help local authorities to be self-sustaining. One big step that the Minister should take is to consolidate some of these local authorities. During the constitutional review at Bomas, we agreed that the district shall be the principal level of devolution. We should strengthen county councils and consolidate them. Some town councils serve no purpose and we should do away with them and create stronger and more sustainable county councils in line with the spirit of the Bomas Draft of the Constitution. There is need for us to help these institutions to develop their revenue collection systems through training of human resources, computerisation and better management and control over the revenue collecting clerks. So that all the money that is collected, either in form of market rates or cess, is brought into the pool and used for development. In many cases, there is evidence that some of the officers use this money for their personal benefits because of the weak structures of revenue collection and lack of accountability of the revenue collected from the residents of the areas that they are responsible for. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for 18 months, I was an Assistant Minister in charge of Trade and Investment Affairs. We have a major crisis in this country today. If we have to bring investors into this country, there must be industrial and commercial enterprises plots. As I speak, I know that many municipalities do not have even a single acre of land available for investments. All the plots were grabbed and some are lying idle. It is high time the Minister looked into this matter. We should create investors paradise through our local authorities. We should challenge our local authorities to be the top salesmen of investment opportunities, so that they can attract investors to their respective local authorities. This is one of the most important ways through which they can sustain themselves. If you have taxpayers' investments in the various local authorities, they will collect more revenue and self- sustain themselves. That can only happen if they have the capacity to attract and retain investors and investments. The issue of lack of physical planning in our local authorities is something that the Ministry should take very seriously. In many residential estates in municipalities and cities, even emergency services such as the fire fighters, ambulance services and the police cannot reach those in distress because there are no proper access roads. Yesterday, one hon. Member said that we should not only name our streets, but also number them. The truth is that the streets do not even exist. Structures have been put up haphazardly all over the place and this cannot be right for this country. At the end of the day, we are going to have a situation where we may have to pull down very expensive structures which have been built with the authority of the local authorities. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}