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{
    "id": 390151,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/390151/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 78,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Governments is inadequate appropriate human capacity; further noting that section 15 (2) of the sixth schedule to the Constitution places responsibility on the national Government to assist County Governments in building capacity to govern effectively and provide services for which they are responsible; the Senate calls on the national Government to take immediate measures to set up a training institute or college to give the necessary and appropriate training to personnel of County Governments. Mr. Speaker, Sir, this Motion recognizes the important place that civil servants have in the realization of the objectives of the Constitution. Our role as the Senate is to protect the interests of the counties and their governments. Our role, as Parliament, is to ensure that county governments are given the necessary support so that they are successful in the discharge of their respective mandates. Our efforts as Senate to discharge our constitutional responsibilities over county governments will come to naught unless the county governments have the appropriate staff to discharge their functions. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the need for appropriate personnel has been known the world over. In Kenya, just before Independence, the Kenya Institute of Administration (KIA) was constituted in order to begin training people, particularly, Africans to take over when we attained Independence. Of course, that school has been upgraded from time to time as the country has assumed more responsibilities in governance particularly in the economic and social development. Mr. Speaker, Sir, various departments of Government have thought it fit to have their specific training institutions. The Ministry of Defence has the Defence Training College in Karen, the Judiciary has its own judicial training institute, bankers have their own training institute, insurers have their own and so on. What I am trying to say is that each organisation requires to train its own specialised workers for that particular purpose. I believe it was Julius Nyerere who said that his policy of socialism failed because although he had civil servants, they were not committed to socialism. It is that lack of commitment to socialism that led to the loophole. We need workers who work in county governments who are committed to devolution. As you know, the laws that we have in place now and which were necessary provided a stop-gap measure for county governments. All the employees of the local authorities were seconded to county governments. In addition to that, we are talking about employees from the national Government and who are performing the work that is supposed to be performed by county governments being seconded. Right now, all employees working for the county governments are on secondment although they have not undergone the necessary training to have a cultural change from working from a unitary national government to working at the county level. They must be employees who are devoted to devolution. Mr. Speaker, Sir, Article 174 of the Constitution sets out the principles of devolution. The principles include protecting the rights of the minorities and the marginalised people. They also include self-government at the grassroots level. They also include various communities having a say in the socio-economic development which affects them. These are concepts that these people have not heard about before. These are people who have sat at the national Government and implemented issues at the national level. They, therefore, think that they have the answers to the problems that face communities at the county level even if they do not know those communities."
}