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{
    "id": 392060,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/392060/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
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    "content": "are entitled to a pension or a golden handshake. Therefore, I agree with the Mover of the Motion that the TA should start an audit of the human resource in the counties, so that we can know how many employees are affected. If the employees cannot be absorbed by the county government, the Motion has taken care of that in its amendment because the national Government would absorb them. But one very important thing is that when the audit is being carried out, the TA needs to determine the level of the employee’s qualifications; whether they are productive. In the past, I was in one of the local authorities where you would find six people seated in a room doing nothing. They just sit there chatting. As we evaluate these employees, we actually need to know their qualifications. If they have to be absorbed by the county government, are they going to add value? If they do not add value, how are we going to deal with these employees? That is why the Mover of the Motion is asking for a framework where this issue can be discussed and negotiated between the governors and the TA, so that they can tell them how many of the employees they can absorb. If they are not able to absorb everyone, they we can know how the national Government will deal with the rest because they have been employees of the national Government. Their pension has to be paid by the national Government. If there is any golden handshake to be paid out, it will also be the national Government to pay out. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we are aware that in the past, every councilor that was elected, came in with their own employees. Even new Ministers came in with their employees. That is why we need to vet those employees in order to know those who are bona fide and those who are not. At the moment, county governments are bloated with staff. In Nyeri County, for example, they are carrying out their own audit and I think they are going to come up with a report through the Senator which will be tabled on the Floor of this House. Also, during our visits to the counties, we have discovered that this is a critical problem which counties have had to deal with. It is also affecting revenue collection. For example, one county raised an issue where the staff from the defunct local authorities are collecting revenue and pocketing it. This county had lost Kshs1 million. It is very urgent that the TA is allowed to continue with the work, maybe for a year, in order to achieve what they started. If we discontinue the operations of the TA, devolution will not be achieved. For a county government to move forward, first, you need to know how many employees you have. An audit should have been done from the outset, for the assets and liabilities. We needed to know what the county government was taking over. However, these two issues were not addressed. As a result, the counties are facing problems, like we recently saw in Nairobi County where workers confronted the Governor to demand for their salaries. We were told that the Governor had to go and borrow money to pay them, so that he could silence the problem. How do we know whether these are genuine workers? That is why it is important that the TA‘s period should be extended for them to complete the exercise so that they can support devolution and work closely with the Senators to make sure that all the devolved functions are tied to the staff who are working at the county governments. I beg to support."
}