HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 396373,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/396373/?format=api",
"text_counter": 106,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "investigators could not get anything, they directed the Government to carry out investigations, for example, the circumstances under which JM’s watch was found in a toilet in Makadara Estate. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, without mincing words and at an appropriate time if this Motion is not passed today, we must take this thing back to the Committee. If you look at the Report of the Committee, it is a two-page report. The quality of the report does not depend on the length, but if you look at the people in this Committee, there is Sen. Kerrow, a man with tremendous qualities in this matter, Sen. Mositet, my leader, Sen. Wetangula, the Majority Whip Sen. Elachi, Sen. Kagwe, Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o, Sen. Mungai, Sen. Mukiite Nobwola and Sen. Kipchumba. To say the least, I expected something better from this high profile Senators sitting in a Committee like this. In fact, this is a repetition. This is a summary of the executive summary of the report by the office of the Controller of Budget. They could as well not have held any meetings at all. They should have just summarized what Mrs. Odhiambo was saying instead of bringing a report which is short on parts and very light on recommendations that are concrete. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, devolution will work on the basis of how it starts and not how it ends or how it continues. If it starts in the wrong way, it would be extremely difficult to recover. So, these are small incidences. As the Senator for Migori said, indeed, it is just a replication of what is, probably, happening in other counties. If this is the way we have started, I would say that devolution, probably, started on a wrong note. We are taking for granted a serious violation of the constitution and, probably, a cocktail of criminal offences in order to give space for this county government to learn its lessons. But, probably, if you allow them to learn their lessons, they may assume that there will always be time to learn those lessons. So, the thing to do is that when it happens, we should deal with it seriously. This is because if you start using kid gloves, then rightly as others have said, we would merely be devolving corruption to the county governments. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the process of budgeting and how county governments prepare their budgets and the legislative process they go through was a matter of meticulous discussion. We should not take for granted the template set out in the Constitution for which Parliament played its role even on behalf of the Senate. The Public Finance Management Act, which is important here, was passed by the Tenth Parliament which towards the end of the life of it, had assumed the functions of the Senate also. The functions of the Senate were taken over by that Parliament so that in seeing a situation where there are these kinds of violations, the Senate should not be seen to be treating any crime or any violation with the kind of recommendations that we have here. So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if this matter goes back to the Committee, then Clause 6 in this Report should go. They should come back and tell us “so-and-so did the alterations; and so-and-so should be charged. If we receive their recommendations, the Executive may not do it because there are a lot of things we do here which are disregarded by the Executive, for example, the various Motions we have passed. But we have played our role. When people look at the history of this Senate with regard to any situation or any challenges that face the nation, I think the Senate will be judged by its record; that we did the right thing when were required to do so. 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."
}