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"id": 386278,
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"content": "anything. They are taken from our county to Marigiti and to other processors, away from the county, raw. The job here is to try to devolve the economy so that we all come from Nairobi where all these processes and marketing is happening and we go to our county. With regard to tourism, which Mr. President dwelt on for some time and which formed a portion of his Speech, we should try to grow the number of visitors from one million to three million. This is a worthwhile goal but if we will concentrate only on old tourist destinations like Maasai Mara and the fish in Malindi, all we will need to do is a bit more marketing. We will not get far. We need to attempt to develop tourism in each of the 47 counties. Nyandarua County, where I come from, hosts the only lake in the central region. This is called Lake Olbolosat. There is nothing happening there. We only have some hippopotamus and a lot of wildlife but there is even no road to get to the lake itself. There is no hotel there and nothing is happening there. We need to grow the tourism sector for each county. This is a challenge for each Member of the Senate. Everybody should go to their county and find out what can be developed in terms of tourism. I do not think we will use the money that was given by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) using a formula. We need funds from the central Government for tourism so that counties are assisted both locally and internationally. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we start off with devolution, these counties are not equal. Many Members have stood here and spoken on how they are unequal. However, there is an equality that has not been cited and I would like to cite it. In Nyandarua County, the one I represent, we find ourselves in a very awkward position. First of all, the entire tarmac that was being put in Central Province was not done in Nyandarua. That is already bad enough. Secondly, due to historical reasons, almost all the counties are inheriting offices which were for the District Commissioner, County Council and for the Municipal Council. In Nyandarua, we find ourselves in a very unfortunate situation. We did not have a Municipal or County Council within our geographical area. We did not have a District Commissioner, in the old sense of 1981, in our county. Somehow, the people who came to build the county headquarters for Nyandarua District found a town called Nyahururu. I think the names Nyandarua and Nyahururu sound similar. They went and built the headquarters in Nyahururu which is in Laikipia County. As a result, the Government built the district hospital in Nyahururu, the county council went and built their offices there and even the OCPD today still sits in Nyahururu, Laikipia County in the Rift Valley region. We, therefore, find ourselves with no office space for anybody not even our Governor. Our Governor has to hire some offices above some shops in a place called Ol Kalau which is our new headquarters. When Members of the Senate sit down to divide revenue and to consider what county should get what, let us not use the formula used on salaries and other recurrent expenditures. Remember that Nyandarua County, I do not know whether there are others in that predicament, does not have offices at all even for the Commissioner. There are simply no Government offices at all. The district hospital is also in Nyahururu, again, in Laikipia County. When I talked to my friend, Sen. G.G. Kariuki, and asked him whether we can curve the town and bring it to our side, of course, he grew wild. The issue now is to fund the county so that it gets its own facilities. 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."
}