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"speaker_name": "Mrs. Shebesh",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I will try to spend as little time as possible so as to give my other colleagues time. First of all, I would like to congratulate this Ministry for bringing before us very comprehensive Bills on Devolution. This is a chapter that was critical to the realization of this Constitution. So, I want to congratulate them. Certain issues, as we have been debating, have come up that may not have been seen to be critical. One of these issues, as the country has been debating the issue of boundaries has been conflicts between clans and tribal conflict. I would, therefore, ask the taskforce through the Minister whether or not--- I would like the two Ministers to listen to me because they are not listening. I just want to talk about the tribal issue and the clan problems. When the issue of the boundaries was being discussed, it was clear that boundaries were not supposed to create hatred; they were meant to create cohesion. County Governments are totally based on the constituencies that have been formed and, of course, the new wards that have been merged. I know that before we had probably not seen it, but I feel that there must be a way to ensure that even as we implement County Governments. Where we are definitely seeing conflicts because of the way the boundaries have been drawn, we should have a mechanism within the County Governments that can either correct it or address it. When I speak about this, let me be specific. I want to give Nairobi as an example. I want to say this without fear of contradiction that Nairobi, during the first review, which is famously called the “Ligale Review”, the issues that came out were mainly surrounding one constituency. Specifically, let me say it was Dagoretti. Dagoretti was the main issue. Today, after we got the second review - I hope that I am using the right term - we have seen that in every constituency wards have been subdivided, of course, because of the merger they have now developed into what we can easily say in Nairobi as tribal constituencies. I am 100 per cent sure, at least, for Nairobi that if the County Government of Nairobi with the wards as they are is not addressed, we would clearly have demarcated Nairobi into tribal constituencies and tribal zones. This is something that can be demonstrated because we are all aware of the dimensions of Nairobi and the fact that all through the years in history, we have been able to balance the representation in Nairobi quite fairly and we have never had too much conflict. However, I am sure and I have talked to my other colleagues from other areas that if it not tribal like it is in Nairobi, it will be clans. The provision to sort out that mechanism may be with the IIBC but if the County Government will be the ones that will be dealing with this problem, maybe there is a mechanism that we did not think about that would be good for us to look at. That is probably something that I propose can be put under one of the functions or roles of one of the County Government. Really, I do not think we had foreseen it. The other issue I want to speak about is the by-laws. It is clear that there are counties that will have the Urban and Cities Act operating within. I am not clear, and again I am speaking on behalf of Nairobi, whether the by-laws will be under the County Assembly or the urban cities, which we will obviously fall under will also be developing their own by-laws. I am saying this because I would not like to be conflicts between laws being created here and there. It has already been seen when we were trying to formulate by-laws here in Nairobi. Of course, the whole country thinks that Nairobi is part of them, and it is true because this is the Capital City of Kenya. However, I would like to tell you that there are unique problems in every county and when by-laws are being fixed, we should respect them. For now, we should respect the councils if they feel that there is a by-law necessary to regulate an issue. We should, therefore, respect the County Assemblies. To avoid conflicts, we need to be clear where there is going to be these two levels, namely, the county and the urban cities, as to who will be the final authority and which by-law can be formulated."
}