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"content": "While doing that, I urge the county governments to take one very important step; that is the step of ensuring that checks and balances in Government work both at the national and at the county level. At the county level, we have the executive headed by the governor and the legislature headed by the Speaker. We know that at the moment, we have two accounting officers, the Clerk to the County Council on the Legislative side and various Ministries and Departments under the governors. Each head of a Ministry is a member of the executive committee or accounting officers. The Public Finance Management Act expects that monies disbursed to accounting officers shall be governed by specific regulations. But before monies are disbursed, particularly to the accounting officers in the legislative side of the Government, those accounting officers must exist, and the letters must reach the national Treasury saying exactly who the accounting officer is, that is, the county clerk. In most counties, this has been done, but monies have not yet been given to the legislative side of the Government. This, of course, undermines checks and balances, and the oversight function of the legislature, that is, the county assembly in the county. We have discussed this with the Controller of Budget and the Auditor-General and it is agreed that the once proper procedure is followed, the treasuries at county level and the Treasury of the Legislature should both receive their resources and function accordingly. This is very important and I hope that it will be done. We should not devolve bad manners to the counties in terms of management of finances. Madam Temporary Speaker, secondly, Chapter Six of the Constitution emphasizes leadership and integrity. Indeed, this is one of the most important chapters in the Constitution as far as transparency and accountability in the Government is concerned. Some bad practices are emerging among certain counties, where either legislatures or members of the executive begin doing business with their own governments or wives for that matter. This is because where a tender is being evaluated, for example, by the assembly service board and then it occurs that some members who are in the county assembly are the ones that are peddling tenders, is conflict of interest and contrary to Chapter Six of the Constitution. Maybe during this first stage of county governments - and people are not aware of this - it should be made crystal clear that it should not happen, otherwise, we shall begin devolving corruption to the county governments. As a result, the money that Sen. Kagwe has just talked about will not be properly used. Madam Temporary Speaker, thirdly – a point that Sen. Kagwe has mentioned – we know that our brother, Sen. Sang, is bringing a Bill to this Senate, to discuss how we can have a proper planning process at the county level. This Bill proposes, among other things, the involvement of Senators in this planning process. This is important because it will make it much more efficient for us to know what priorities have been agreed to at the county level. So, when our various Committees begin to discuss here, we are very informed, so that there is no to and fro communication between us and the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, I do not want to anticipate debate, but I know that there has been some anxiety that governors are made secretaries in that Bill. It is not governor the person, but office of the governor. That is important in every kind of corporation that the chief executive must take care of the records of committees or commission and so on. It must be understood in that light. I hope that when we come to 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."
}