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{
    "id": 382171,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/382171/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 68,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Abdirahman",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 161,
        "legal_name": "Abdirahman Ali Hassan",
        "slug": "abdirahman-ali-hassan"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I want to second this Motion by stating the fact that this is an area which has been of concern to many Kenyans including leaders. I remember a similar thing came up in the Ninth Parliament. Motions can be passed at times but if the relevant agencies including Government do not think of ways to enforce them, that becomes a problem. The Pensions Department, for instance, is a stone throw-away from the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC). If any of us walked over there, they would find what Sen. Obure is trying to bring out for us to understand. Yesterday, two retired chiefs came to my office. They are looking for their retirement benefits. They told me that they are currently putting up in Eastleigh and that it was becoming very expensive for them to stay around. Can you imagine a chief coming from the furthest end of northern Kenya hanging around for the past 21 days, trying to get his file from the Office of the President first, and then trailing it all the way to the Pensions Department which is across the road? This is the highest order of inefficiency on the part of those charged with the responsibility of ensuring that ordinary citizens do not suffer. We have a lot to learn from the idea of one-stop shop. This is happening in the Ministry of Trade where there were very many barriers and requirements for licensing, 21, to be precise, that complicated facilitation of trade. It was not difficult to solve this because at one point, the Kenya Investments Authority took stock of this and shortened the process. The same thing can be replicated by the Pensions Department. People have been giving bribes at the Pensions Department to find their files. I do not think that is the right thing to do. We can do a lot to improve the payment of claims, either for retirement benefits, court awards or insurance claims not even to six months as the Motion suggests but these can be facilitated and paid in a maximum of three months, That way, we will have saved Kenyans a lot of time and money which would have otherwise gone into something important. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, now that we have devolved to county governments, the Pensions Department, for instance, should be the first to devolve to the county governments so that once claims, as proposed by Sen. Obure, are verified, they are paid easily in a matter of weeks. Finally, capacity should be improved at the county level so that they take charge of some of these responsibilities. Before I conclude, I will say that before payments are facilitated, particularly for members of the service who may have died, their families suffer a lot in terms of getting these things processed with the public trustees. We know that the Pensions Department has done a lot of reforms but I do not think we have done a lot of enforcement. I second. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}