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"speaker_name": "Eng. Muriuki",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move the following Motion:- THAT, this House adopts the Report of the Constituencies Development Fund Committee pursuant to Section 27 (4) (d) of the Constituencies Development Fund Act (2003) laid on the Table of the House on Tuesday, 28th March, 2006. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Constituencies Development Fund Act was passed by this House in December, 2003 and it became operational in 2004, and we are now in the third year of its operation. Among the provisions in the CDF Act is the establishment of a Select Committee of this House, otherwise referred to as the Constituencies Development Fund Committee. I wish to thank the House for electing me as the Chair of that Committee. Among the several responsibilities of that Committee is to oversee the implementation of 508 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 18, 2006 the Act. In this respect, after every two years, it will table a report before the House to indicate the operations of the Fund and recommend the various amendments to the Act that it feels are necessary. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is the first Report of that Committee. Allow me to mention the hon. Members who have run that Committee until now. They are:- Mr. C. Kilonzo, Eng. Nyamunga, Messrs. Y.M. Haji, L. Maitha; Mrs. J. Kihara; Prof. C. Mango; Messrs S. Manoti, H. Kosgey, A.S. Dahir, S. Koech and Eng. K. Muriuki. I wish to take the earliest opportunity to thank the Members of that Committee for the tireless effort they have put into putting the Constituencies Developing Fund (CDF) where it is. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said, this is the first Report of the Committee. It covers an overview of the operations, policy framework and the many challenges and shortcomings of the Fund which we have gone through so far. It also highlights the areas of concern to the Committee and other hon. Members which we picked through our deliberations and interactions both with the hon. Members and the public. It also points out certain provisions in the Act which we have, in due course, found either unworkable or undesirable. It also gives the Committee's recommendations on the review of the Act. The salient points of the proposed amendments are all highlighted in Part VI of this Report and, in due course, we will go through them. But the Report itself has more details than just those salient points. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the first year of the operation of the CDF was 2003/2004, although the actual disbursements were not done until August, 2004. This is the third year of the provisions in the Budget and the operations of the CDF. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the first year, 2003/2004, a total of Kshs1.26 billion was disbursed. I am happy to report that all 210 constituencies received equal amounts of the monies which were set aside for every one of them. Each constituency received Kshs6 million. In the year 2004/2005, the total amount of the CDF money was Kshs5.6 billion. Again, I am happy to report that a total of 208 constituencies received their money. However, two constituencies have not received their second tranche of the same due to various reasons which the Committee is looking into. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in the year 2004/2005, a total of Kshs7.246 billion was set aside for CDF. Again, I am very happy to report that as at the time we took the count - this is a couple of weeks back - a total of 197 constituencies had received, at least, the first tranche of their 2004/2005 Financial Year allocation. Out of 97 constituencies, 53 constituencies have received their full allocations for the Financial Year 2005/2006. That means up to June, 2006, a total of Kshs14.1 billion has been allocated to constituency-based projects through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when the CDF was created in 2004, one of the major issues we had to deal with was procurement. Hon. Members will appreciate that CDF money is public money and, therefore, the public procurement law has to be followed to the letter. However, we found that the peculiarity of the CDF was such that some aspect of negotiation was needed between the CDF Committee and the Treasury, because the projects we were undertaking and the amounts of money involved was such that although some of the procurement procedures were being followed, they had to be moderated. We never broke any rules but we had to moderate the system of procurement, the essence of it being recognition of project committees as the procuring entities. So, if some money is, for instance, allocated to a secondary school by the CDF Committee, that school's Board of Governors would be the procuring entity. Therefore, the cheque from the CDF will be written to that school's April 18, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 509 Board of Governors. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I appreciate hon. Members' desire to finish this debate today. However, there are a number of issues I would like to point out to hon. Members, so that they can vote for or against this Report having understood those issues. Kenya is made of diverse regions, climatic zones, ethnic groups, religions, et cetera . Therefore, the inclination as to how the CDF money is supposed to be utilised varies from one region to another, or from one constituency to another. We have, however, noted that a number of sectors appear to be consistently favoured, irrespective of which constituency one comes from. The education sector has taken the lion's share of the CDF money. This is closely followed by the health and water sectors. The roads sector is also a major cause of outcry throughout the country. Whenever we tour the constituencies, the roads sector emerges to be of greatest concern to the people. However, submissions from the various constituencies show that very little money goes into this sector. When we inquired to establish why this has been the case, we established that the reasoning by the various CDF committees appears to be that the roads are so bad, that putting CDF money in them does not solve the problem. Hon. Members and their CDF committees have realised that they can spend, for example, Kshs2 million to construct school buildings successfully. However, the same amount of money can be used to grade only one or two kilometres of a road. It is, perhaps, for that reason that CDF money tends to go into sectors other than the road network. Money from the CDF has also gone to the road sector but not in a major way. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, my Committee has taken the initiative of briefing hon. Members regularly. Whenever we have a problem, we communicate to hon. Members through the normal"
}