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{
    "id": 399121,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/399121/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
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    "content": "county governments. Somehow, all the counties benefit. Wherever the businesses are in this country, all the counties benefit indirectly. I think it is important for county governments to be advised and for all Senators to advise county governments respectively when they are preparing Finance Bills so that they are not punitive. Their rates should not be punitive. They must not be unreasonable. They must avoid double taxation. They must also avoid discouraging investors. Lastly, it is important that we address the issue of accountability that is very critical. I mentioned, earlier, that revenues are falling in many counties. In a county that was collecting Kshs200 million when it was under the local authority, six months after the county governments took over, it is collecting less than Kshs100 million. We saw that in many counties that we visited. What is happening is that, clearly, there is lack of accountability. We are aware that a number of counties are trying to address it. They are trying to automate their revenue collection services. They are trying to come up with electronic revenue collection systems and to outsource their revenue collection. However, what is important is that there are questions regarding accountability in some counties. We must commend some counties that have already doubled or tripled their revenue collections. They are there and quite a number of counties have really tried. Their monthly collections are going up significantly. For others, the monthly collections have been going down. It is incumbent upon all of us, as Senators, to be alive to that fact as we visit the counties. However, counties must be held accountable. They must put in place systems that will ensure integrity and that will cut down on corruption. We have seen counties where people have been arrested, sacked and so forth. In fact, some of the two counties that we visited had experienced massive corruption in revenue collection. Money has been completely lost. I think it is important for county governments to know that they will be held accountable for loses of revenue and that the ability to raise revenue is an important factor. The fiscal ability of a county is an important factor in determining the revenues that they will get under Articles 203 of the Constitution. We want to encourage those who are modernizing their revenue collection systems to go ahead and do it. Those who want to outsource it should do it but whatever the case, we want to encourage the county governments to ensure that they are accountable. They must work to increase their revenue. This Bill, therefore, is very important. I want to conclude by saying that the responsibility for ensuring that the transition is completed by 30th September was given to the Transition Authority (TA). I want to state, clearly, that in my view - with regard to the public finance - the TA did not deliver. They did not deliver. The TA arrangement regarding finance, in terms of putting the capable people in place, putting financial records in place and all the systems in place should have been done by now. They came on board in December and had nine months to address all the issues regarding public finance management. It would not have been necessary to extend the validity of this Act if the TA had done its bit. It is important for them to now move fast and ensure that all county governments are in compliance with regard to the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) so that we do not need this piece of legislation come 30th June, 2014."
}