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{
    "id": 382255,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/382255/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 152,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "files within the Government not being kept up to date. I came across many files where somebody was retiring. This is someone who had served the Government for over 40 years. If you check his personal file, you will find that it only shows when he was employed on temporary terms. This file does not show when he was confirmed or even promoted. To ensure that the records are updated, this takes many months. They are now redoing the files so that they can pay. We also have issues of tax clearance. If you have been working for the Government, you must get clearance from the Ministry. Things can be very interesting. For example, Madam Temporary Speaker, when I retired, I was told that a book had come to my office in 1997, but it not been returned. I was told that I cannot be cleared without returning it. I could not even recall which book it was, under what circumstances it came, but I was told it must be cleared. So, I had to pay the value of that book just to get clearance out of the way. That just shows you that if the Attorney- General can have that problem, what about people in the lower cadres of the Civil Service? Madam Temporary Speaker, when it comes to matters of decrial amounts or where judgment has been entered, again, there is lack of information. First of all, it makes the work of the accounting officer very difficult to ascertain in advance how many claims or judgments will have been delivered against the Ministry in any given year. The Government being what it is, this means that some of those judgments are made in far flung areas in various courts all over the country. Sometime the accounting officer does not know. So, it is only when he is confronted that he tries to write to the Ministry of Finance to get some money out of the Consolidated Fund. But I am glad that by the time I left, we had begun streamlining that process. Madam Temporary Speaker, as we pass this Motion, my appeal is that the Government should also begin streamlining the records. There should be better information flow on the cases that have been filed against the Government; better information flow on the judgments that have been entered against the Government. That will make it easier for the bureau to take over. I am glad that I am in the Committee. Thank you very much for thinking about me to be on the Committee. When this one-stop bureau is established, it will only serve a useful purpose if the constitutional provisions are followed. What are those constitutional provisions? It is that even the national institutions, such as the one we are going to establish, must be decentralized to county governments. Article 6(3) of the Constitution deals with decentralization of some functions from the national Government to county governments. This must be facilitated. It is only when this function is transferred to the county government that we will assist retirees, so that a man does not have to travel all the way from Busia to Nairobi for his pension. He would go to the local office. Since that office will have the backing of the law, it will help that particular person to pursue his pension or claim. I beg to support the amendment."
}