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"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, let me say from the outset that we need to seriously deal with the historical injustices which we wanted to address and have already referred to in the Constitution as marginalized areas. But the Equalisation Fund cannot deal with these issues, because it is so small that even when they try to spread it around, they had to leave other areas out, like my own county which falls in that bracket. It was left out because the spread was too thin. I want to urge that when we amend this Constitution, we must deal with the Equalisation Fund and make it reasonable, so that we can seriously say that some people can be brought up to some level. They may never ever be equal to Nairobi or Kiambu, but they will be somewhere. At least, there will be some infrastructure and social amenities in those areas. Madam Temporary Speaker, let me refer to one thing that bothers me most; that is, the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). I must talk about it because it takes 2.5 per cent of money that we should be distributing to counties. The father of CDF was here and he has just walked out. We did this because there was no devolution. We wanted to devolve some funds to the constituencies, so that we could do certain things that the national Government was not doing at the centre. That is how we came to this 2.5 per cent. In fact, it should have been 5 per cent, but hon. Mwiraria, who was then Minister for Finance during that period, persuaded us that when the economy did better, we would improve it to 5 per cent. The economy has done very well, but it has never gone beyond 2.5 per cent. We should have insisted on 5 per cent. But it was a forerunner like the John the Baptist to Jesus Christ. Now, when “Jesus” arrived, “John the Baptist” must recede and diminish and Jesus must come forth. The CDF must now go and devolution takes its place, because that was the reason we created it. We created it because there was no other structure at the local area in which we could put money. So, we agreed to create something called the CDF and let the Member of Parliament chair it or even be a patron. That is how we did it. It was patchwork waiting for the real thing. Now, the real thing is here. This 2.5 per cent must now go to the county governments. There are only two governments in this Constitution. There is the national Government and the county government. My brothers and sisters in the Lower House must know that there is no constituency government. This Constitution does not allow you to be a member of the Executive, the Legislature and a representative at the same time. We cannot have those. We have so many chaos and court cases on things that were done chaotically because we did not have a structure. Madam Temporary Speaker, I am not saying that the CDF has not done a good job. In fact, in my constituency, if there was no CDF, I am sure that we would be very much backward now. But that job can now be done by the county government which has an assembly which can do these things. The county government will devolve to the constituencies, sub-counties and even wards. So, there is no vacuum that needs to be filled by a Member of Parliament, so that he or she becomes a little executive in some constituency. I am doing this boldly because I know that some people will accuse me, but I want to take it. Madam Temporary Speaker, the CDF is now the bad tooth. We have to remove and replace it with the good tooth, that is, the county government. This is because if we leave it this way, there is going to be a serious competition between the Members of Parliament and Governors and county representatives. There is going to be confusion 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."
}