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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me to lament about Kakamega County. Poor hon. Ambetsa Oparanya, he is taking over Lugari and Kakamega county councils, Kakamega Municipal Council, the County Council of Butere and Malaba and Mumias Town Councils. These are six former county councils. If you ask him to take over the debts of these six councils, hon. Oparanya will not operate. I have seen a very big joke suggesting that Kakamega County will be given a paltry Kshs7.8 billion. What will hon. Oparanya do with a small amount like this one? We will be speaking on this when the Bill comes because it is gross injustice to the people of Kakamega County. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we resolve to ask the Government to take over these debts, we should also have something to say about the former chief officers. The culture in this country of saying a lot and doing very little about perpetrators should come to an end. We all remember when we privatized Telkom Kenya, the people who caused financial trouble there, are alive and walking scoff-free in this country. Instead the Government went on and paid billions of shillings in order to save Telkom Kenya. We should send a clear message by resolving that the former chief officers, who incurred some of these bad debts, should be arrested, surcharged and their properties sold, so that office bearers who served in public interest should not think that one can always steal public funds and get away with it when the Government settles the debts. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, still on issues of Kakamega County, if we do not stop and pause and think about the amendment by Sen.(Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o that was defeated yesterday, we will have a situation whereby as soon as people on the ground realize that the Government is taking over these particular debts, they will make very many claims and most of them artificial. We have cases in Kakamega County where some unscrupulous lawyers have taken the former county councils to court, settlements have been made and people walk away with millions of shillings. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the final point I want to make is: What are some of these services that county governments are expected to offer? The functions are clearly defined in the schedule. In the case of Kakamega County, it scares me when I realize that this county is supposed to be responsible for health services. The only services that the national Government will exercise in Kakamega will be as far as national referral hospitals are concerned. There is no national referral hospital in Kakamega. It means that right from the Kakamega Provincial General Hospital, to all other health centres and dispensaries, this will be the responsibility of the county government. We require hundreds of millions of shillings to run all the health facilities, including Kakamega Provincial General Hospital in Kakamega County. We need to stand up to this and demand that every county must have one national referral facility that can be taken over by the Government, so that, at least, Kenyans in every county have access to a hospital which is funded, maintained and staffed by the national Government. Can you imagine a situation where all the doctors, nurses and other medical specialists in all the health facilities in Kakamega County and, for that matter, in Siaya County are being paid by the Governor? Surely, this man is being set up for failure. If, indeed, we are committed to making sure that our devolved system functions, we must stand tall and speak in loud voices to ensure that the Treasury respects devolution by not passing on its responsibilities, especially the responsibilities that they do not like. 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."
}