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{
    "id": 402036,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/402036/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 154,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "and ensure that it brings us closer to the dreams and aspirations that we have for this country. Mr. Speaker, Sir, what is happening at the moment is that when you open the newspapers every day, you find big advertisements from counties spreading over two, three, four or even five pages of a national newspaper with a national circulation, advertising certain jobs which could be done in their websites and in the process, save them substantial amounts of money. But every day you open a newspaper, somebody has a forum where they are inviting people to come and invest; they buy space and we never get to hear the results. But I believe that these are things that can best be done and dealt with in a cost-saving way. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you travel to the counties and the Governor happens to be travelling, you will find traffic jams in sleepy towns that have never seen traffic jams because of the number of vehicles being used by the Governor to wade through a poverty-stricken countryside town. When people see this kind of opulence, and knowing the level of poverty they are going through, I wish to submit that it comes out as an insult to the people that we say we are representing. This is not the time, in my view, to show opulence. This is the time for the county governments to come out with policies to tell the people how they will come out of abject poverty; how they are going to have food sustainability; how they will take their children to school; how the Mutahi-Kagwe Report on Education will be implemented; how we will build Early Childhood Development (ECD) classes; how an ECD class will not cost more than Kshs100,000, and how several ECD classes may be built in a county out of the purchase of only one limousine which is being used on those dusty roads by the Governors. We need to understand what it is that we want to achieve as a country and what it is that we are trying to show our people. We need to understand that our country has not suddenly become rich and powerful just because we have devolution. We need to show that devolution is supposed to be a means to creating wealth for those counties. That is why I was very shocked to read that the lady, Agnes Odhiambo, was saying that she is not releasing money to the counties because they have not reached the threshold of making a budget. This means they do not have the capacity in a good number of them even to create budgets. Is the way forward to use big titles, buy big cars, and make people poorer by not meeting their budgets? Or is the way forward to work in such a way that our people are empowered? Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have had the privilege of serving as an Ambassador for this great country. Out there where I served, on every official function, I was referred to as “Your Excellency.” But the only reason for that was because I was a personal representative of the President of the Republic of Kenya."
}