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{
    "id": 392967,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/392967/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 180,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Musila",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 94,
        "legal_name": "David Musila",
        "slug": "david-musila"
    },
    "content": "We have also seen, recently, wrangles within devolved units. We have seen Members of the County Assemblies not working in cooperation with the Executive arm of the devolved units. I have in mind, a case where in the County of Makueni; the Governor has threatened to resign because he feels harassed, as he puts it, by Members of the County Assembly. I am not sure if this is so but I know that there is no harmony. Harmony is necessary if we are to take this devolution ahead. I give an allowance because this is a new system. People must strive to follow the Constitution and learn from it, what other parameters can be used like how far the county assembly can go and how far the governor can go so that they work in harmony. All of us are serving the same people. I gave an example of Makueni but it is not the only one. Mr. Speaker, Sir, all the authorities in the 47 counties have issues here and there between the executive arm of the Government and the legislative arm of the devolved units. Therefore, I want to urge that there should be harmony between the two units of the Government so that we take off, without which this Senate will be seen to be failing. When something happens in the devolved units of government and yet this Senate is supposed to be providing oversight role, we will be failing. That is why I support the Chairman’s suggestion that we should be preparing reports annually to show the state of devolution in the country so that counties that are weak can see in which areas they are weak and be assisted. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have gone through the difficulties of preparation of budgets and it was obvious that the budgets prepared by counties were not based on anything. It was just a matter of how much we are receiving and this is how much we want to spend, for example, on travelling and so on. It is true that we should get people with knowledge and that is why I support the proposal for capacity building. These units do not have financial or administrative people who have the capacity to run governments because these are governments. Therefore, I think the first priority should be to ensure that these counties have the necessary personnel in order to carry out the functions as detailed in the Constitution. That is a very sound recommendation by these two committees and it should be implemented. Mr. Speaker, Sir, this House allocated Kshs210 billion to the counties and it looks like the county governments are only talking about that money. They are not talking about how much revenue the counties are going to generate. It is not just the 15 per cent or so that the national Government is giving that is supposed to run counties. We would like to hear counties telling us how much they have collected. We have already started the new financial year 2013/2014 but they do not talk about revenue generation within their counties. They only seem to talk about the amount of money coming from the national Government. I think it is very important that counties develop their revenue bases by way of how much money they are getting so that what comes from the national Government is just a top up of the revenues that the counties are able to collect. This must be observed because we have been hearing too much talk about 15 per cent but they are not talking about the revenue they are collecting. Mr. Speaker, Sir, there is also the issue in this Report about national Government personnel who are being seconded to counties. I think this matter again must be addressed properly. With respect to the national Government, particularly the former The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}