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"id": 262623,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/262623/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Nanok",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Forestry and Wildlife",
"speaker": {
"id": 57,
"legal_name": "Josephat Koli Nanok",
"slug": "josephat-nanok"
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, as the previous speaker said, public participation has also been enhanced. I really like the fact that, for the first time in the history of this country, the participation of the public is going to be bottom-up. Decisions are going to be made and influenced by what the people say and think. I hope that this will not only be upheld at the county level, but even for the national Government functions that are going to be enacted, public participation should be enhanced much more than it has been in the past. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I like the fact that this Bill has actually repealed Cap.265 and enhanced the powers of county assembly representatives. These are the replacers of councillors. They are going to be very powerful and will be enacting legislation and overseeing county governments. They will be like Members of Parliament for the county assemblies. To me, those who will be chosen will, at least, be people who can do this. I am happy that we had set qualifications for this in a previous Act of Parliament. So, competent and right people will be elected by the local voters in the wards and constituencies to be able to occupy these positions. But one thing that I have noted is the fact that through the public hearings which the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) held recently, there are quite a number of constituencies and wards, where the public has actually said that the allocation of wards is too small. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, even the way the IEBC created the wards is not clear. They said that they used the recommendations of the Local Government task force, but we know that this task force is not in any law. What we are now enacting this Bill as the law that the IEBC will use, when they do their final check on the boundaries of wards and constituencies; they will then gazette the final wards that we will have for purposes of the elections that will be held at the end of this year or early next year. There is one thing I would like the Minister to look into again because quite a number of counties have been given few wards, particularly my own backyard of Turkana County, a very vast county comprising of 77,000 square kilometres; it has been given a total of 30 wards. This is not enough to address the issue of under-representation. It is not enough to address the issue of overworking the ward representatives. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, therefore, I urge that under Clause 27(1) and (2), we look at how best we can put a cap. The Bill has already proposed a minimum of 15 wards per county. We can also fix a maximum number of wards per county. I suggest that the Minister considers 40 wards per county as appropriate. I believe that this will accommodate a number of areas we have said are still going to be under-represented. It will help the IEBC to have a law to use to sort out some of the petitions that are going to be presented to this House. The effect of this would be increasing the total number of wards from the 1,450 recommended by the task force, which the IEBC has included in its Report, to a maximum of 1,880. The IEBC can review this so that we can accommodate those differences. For instance, in Turkana we have re-looked at the number of wards required and we think we need a maximum of 38 wards, and not 30 wards. If this adjustment is done, the under-representation of certain areas will become history. I urge that this House helps us in making amendments to this provision. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to touch on Clause 134, on transition. I have noted that under Part I, the Bill recommends that the IEBC determines the time, the place and the date of the sitting of the first county assembly in each county. My concern is that the IEBC does not have any role to play in determining the time and the place of the sittings of the Legislature; therefore, it should not decide for the county assemblies where and when they should be sitting. Such responsibility should be left to the residents of each county. In Turkana, it should be left to the residents to decide; the sittings of the county assembly should take place in Lodwar, for instance. Likewise, the residents of Nairobi should decide where the sittings of the county assembly should take place. The eight individuals in the IEBC should not be deciding where the county assemblies should be sitting. So, I want to urge the Minister to see whether this provision can be amended because it is in breach of the spirit of public participation, and also the spirit of letting the people to decide. Most likely, the IEBC would recommend that the sittings take place at the county headquarters. So, if we leave it to the IEBC to decide that the sittings should take place at the county headquarters, it will give a big challenge the communities in the counties. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Bill does not say what functions the county government should take up after the elections; such functions can be progressively transferred to the county government during the transition period. If this matter is not addressed through this Bill, let it be addressed through the subsequent Bill that will come to this House, so that the people are not disappointed in the first two years of introduction of the county governments. For instance, if a county government is given only 20 per cent of its functions to perform whereas the mwananchi expects the county to fulfil its full mandate, this can cause disappointment. So, we have to weigh this, so that the resultant law can be much clearer to avoid conflict between the voters and the county governments when they come into place. Lastly, I would like to speak on the arrangement of public service secondment. The Bill proposes that any public servant who will be within the jurisdiction of the county will automatically be seconded to that county government to work as a member of staff for that county government. I believe that we are talking about the public servants who have been employed by the national Government. However, this clause does not say anything about the county public service board being allowed to work closely with the Public Service Commission. This Bill should be very clear, so that it does not become the business of the Public Service Commission, which is a national body, to micro-manage secondments of personnel to the county governments. There should be mutual consultations between the Public Service Commission and the county public service boards. With those many remarks, I beg to support."
}