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    "id": 396996,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/396996/?format=api",
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    "content": "against them in the form of salaries. These counties are finding it very difficult to pay their salaries because some of these salaries have been hefty. For some of these people who have been devolved to the counties, we are yet to prove whether they have been declared redundant in the central Government and are not very efficient in the counties and are, therefore, a liability. I was of the opinion that some census should have been carried out so that the quality of the labor force which was transferred to the counties was to be assessed first to find out whether they are useful or not. If they were not useful in the central Government, they should not have been transferred to the counties because the counties, as we speak now, are becoming like the pay masters. This is because every other month, the money which is released to the counties – about 75 per cent – will go to the recurrent expenditure in the form of personal emoluments. That will spell doom to some of the counties that would have started their projects early enough, and some these projects may even need more money than what is being released per month. I, therefore, would have expected the Committee to revise this schedule and come up with another report to encourage those counties which would be spending their money more appropriately so that those counties which will be accounting for the money spent at any other given month can be encouraged by being given more money even on a quarterly basis. Because the moment a project is started and it costs more than the money being given per month minus the salaries, that project, towards the end, might not even be viable or might not be completed because of the shortage of funds. The other thing, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, that we need to consider here and which the Committee should also look into is the procurement procedures that we have countrywide. It is very hard for any county or for any project to be started without the appropriate procurement procedures and systems being followed. When it comes to awarding of tenders, bidding and then procuring, it can take a whole year and by the time that is over, the amount of money which was supposed to be given out from the central Government might not even be available and the project, therefore, will stall. These are some of the things that we need to consider as we release these funds so that the counties will not suffer. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, as we were going round with my Committee on Education, Information and Technology, we realized that some counties are doing very well, and they are happy that devolution has come at the right time. We noted that some of the counties have even doubled the collection of revenue compared to what it used to be before when there were local governments. For example, we noted that Mombasa County was collecting almost Kshs2 billion per month. If such counties can collect such a high amount of revenue, these are then the counties that should be considered for being efficient and they should, therefore, be given more money so that they can continue financing the projects that are already in place. This is the kind of encouragement that should be given to the counties that seem to be serious in enacting development. That way, we are going to have more counties coming up with projects which will, later on, 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."
}