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    "id": 384543,
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    "content": "the Chiefs’ Act, so that the Cabinet Secretary can have space to issue orders regarding environmental degradation within the county. Madam Temporary Speaker, all the laws recognize Ministers as the implementing authorities, and these are not Ministers in the county government. These are the Ministers of the national Government. Any law that you talk about – the Agriculture Act, Mining Act, and Forests Act – go back to the Minister as the implementing authority. Unless those laws are amended, the governors are merely going to implement indirect rule. This is because they will have to look for Ministers to issue orders since there is no law authorizing them to issue those orders. Madam Temporary Speaker, the parastatal system in the country is what is governing the economy. We have parastatals virtually for everything. There is even a Pineapple Authority in this country. But those parastatal authorities do not recognize the new system of government but the Minister. There is a need for us to review all the parastatal laws - and they are more than 150 of them in this country – for us to be able to empower the county governments to perform those economic tasks within the counties. Regarding issues of licences and all that, there are no specific laws which give governors powers to remove the trade licences. There will be the Licensing Act and the authority is the Minister. So, if we are devolving that power to the county government, then we have to give that power from the national Minister to the county Minister. Therefore, the Motion which has been brought by my learned friend here is a very critical Motion for implementation to take place. Madam Temporary Speaker, when we talk about devolution, we must be aware that they are just like our counter-revolutionalists in the past. There are counter- devolutionalists within the system, and they will give us a lot of problems. Madam Temporary Speaker, we have to arrange so that we have a protracted struggle against those counter-devolutionaries within the system, the so-called “centralists”. They are not going to make it easy for us. I remember when we appointed the Minister for Nairobi Metropolitan Development and the President gave a circular giving powers to him to do so many things here, he was not able to move because all the powers were vested in the Minister for Local Government. So, the Minister sat in an office in KICC here but decisions were being made from the Old Jogoo House. Apart from flying the chopper which the later Mutula Kilonzo flew a few days over Nairobi, he was not able to do anything because of obstruction by the Local Government Act. Our own governors will face similar problems because in public, we are saying that they are very powerful, they can do this or that but real power is vested in the laws and regulations. I am aware right now that there is no speaker of the county assemblies anywhere in the Republic who has security; whether in their cars or in their homes but the District Commissioners (DCs) and District Officers (DOs) have Administration Police Officers guarding them for 24 hours. When I inquired, I was shown a circular showing the people to be provided with security. That circular did not include the speakers of the county assemblies. That circular was issued following a certain law. Unless these circulars are amended, we are not going to get any security for our county speakers. When we say that 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."
}