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{
    "id": 333396,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/333396/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 533,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang-Nyongo",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Medical Services",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I stand to support this Motion which is very important. As the Mover, my friend, hon. Sambu said, it was important that the Budget Committee, together with the relevant organs of Government, arrived at a manner of exercising the distributive powers of the State to counties. This should be done in such a manner that it will make sense to the people of Kenya. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as my friend Ethuro has also emphasized, the essence of the new Constitution is devolution. This is because through devolution government goes to the people, resources go to the people and there will be a tremendous stimulus for development in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Coalition Government had what was called stimulus programmes for building dispensaries or health centres and schools and so on across the country. We have seen the impact of these stimulus projects in rural economy or in the places where the majority of our people live. There are schools of excellence both primary and secondary. For the first time, equipment and infrastructure has been established in rural areas and in areas where one never expected these things to happen. With the establishment of the model health centres, the Government is now able to carry out certain diagnostic tests in these health centres. For a long time, we were not seen in certain parts of this country. With the CDF and stimulus programmes, we can see the economic and social impact of resources taken to the grassroots level. Then with devolution and with more money taken there properly, we look forward to a stimulation of development from below and not the “top down approach” that has bedeviled the authoritarian regimes in this country since Independence. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I only want to go through the percentages that the Committee has recommended and hope that we will use those five years as a pilot programme to see the extent to which this answers to the question of equity that is very central to the Constitution. I think these percentages were put so that in devolving funds to the counties, there should not emerge yet another system of unequal development. We should, instead, address previous structural and historical patterns of unequal development. I do not want the percentage to be changed now. But I would like to see that during the first five years of what I call the pilot scheme. After that, we look at the percentage very carefully on the issue of land areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we use the land area alone as an essential category without further qualification of what land area means, we may end up putting resources in large land masses, quite a good part of which is not really productive. I think with land area, we should also add land area and land utility. Area alone is not enough. In the United States of America (USA), for example, you will find that there are certain states which are very big. They are big because quite a good part is desert and does not really have much utility until such time that you discover oil or other minerals in those areas. When you do discover useful minerals, you extend infrastructure to those places because now there is proven utility. I do not think that from the beginning, we should just put money because there is a large land mass. We should associate area with utility so that the extent to which you"
}