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{
    "id": 396433,
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    "content": "or in the Constitution? Perhaps we need to look at the Constitution. We have also had our issues here where figures are agreed upon but at the end of the day, it does not come out the way we expected. Is it the Constitution or the way we pursue things? These are weighty issues that can be avoided. Mr. Temporary Speaker, it would be good if we heard the side of the Governor. Maybe, the Governor had to do what he did to save a certain situation knowing very well that at the end of the day, he will reverse the thing. That is the way most politicians would do. They would pass the budget as it is then later on know how to go about it. Maybe governors have been held at ransom to approve certain things as a condition for their budgets to be approved. After approval, the governor realizes that they even included things which should not have been included in the budget in the first place. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there is also the issue of timeliness. The time set out for preparing the budget is too tight and yet it is a long process. We have to look at how the budgeting process can commence early enough so that things are not done the last minute. Certain budgets may even be approved on condition that it will be amended later. Those are temptations which may bring problems. It may be necessary that this Senate has an office for oversighting. We should have a secretariat that can assist the Senate to obtain information from counties and give it to us in good time. I have heard many Senators say that they have never seen the budget for their counties yet they are supposed to oversight. We have offices in the counties. We do not have the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) and bursaries so what do those offices do? Our role is to oversight. So, those offices could be provided with qualified personnel who can provide information to Senators. The Senate office here should also gather information even for the Committees. We may be blaming Committees here for not having done enough but they rely on information from other offices. Just as it is necessary to establish certain offices within Parliament, it is time we had a full-fledged office or department within the Senate to assist us in oversighting. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I want to say that I would not support this Motion as it is because we need to go into the root cause and find out what the problem is. I do not want to apportion blame to the governor or to the county assembly. Maybe, if the budget of the county assembly was not tight, we would not have had this amendment. We need to go and see what is ailing the budgeting process in the counties."
}