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{
    "id": 404425,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/404425/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 269,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Karaba",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 232,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Dickson Karaba",
        "slug": "daniel-karaba"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for allowing me to also contribute and support this Bill. This Bill is very relevant and it is one of the checks and balances that are already enshrined in the Constitution, particularly so with regard to the devolved government; that is the county government. If there are no checks and balances, we are going to allow unaccounted for activities in these counties, and we have already started seeing these things. We have seen, heard and read about what is happening in these counties. We are aware of some counties which are holding beauty contests, and that practice is rampant everywhere. You will hear of a beauty contest on this side and another one in Kakamega; we were in Vihiga and we saw a beauty contest there. It is like a free for all; whatever the governor wants to do with the money that he has been given – which is supposed to be supervised and oversighted by the Senator – he does it without anybody questioning him. So, to me, this Bill is coming at the right time so that we can now tell the governors that there are limits to what they are doing, and there are consequences for whatever else they would like to do. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in this Assembly, we have moved Motions and some of these Bills have emanated from a very serious Committee, headed by none other than the former Attorney-General. Members of that Committee are not simple men and women or Senators; and they have come up with a Bill, not for the sake of the Committee, but for the sake of this country of ours. So, it is this process, therefore, which should be respected. In respect of this process, we need to sympathize with those people who cannot understand it; and they cannot understand it because they have other ulterior motives of trying to see how they can use and misuse the money that we allocate to them. We have sat here in the Committee on Finance, Commerce and Economic Affairs under the able chairmanship of the Committee Chairperson, and we have discussed allocations of these funds. We said this county will get so much; another one to get Kshs6 billion; another one to get Kshs2 billion; and we are the people who decide how much each county will get. We are the same people who sit to decide how much will go towards the Equalisation Fund; it is there, and we discuss a lot about funds to go towards the counties. Surely, if we are the same people discussing how much each county should get, are we not the same people who should sit down to find out how much each county has spent? This is for accountability; we need to know why this amount of money has not been spent; we need to know why you are buying a vehicle, et cetera . By the way, there is a lot of competition – I do not know whether you are aware. You will find a governor buying a bigger car than the Senator, so that if the Senator has a Lexus, the governor will buy a Lexus 10 or 12 costing about Kshs15 million, yet he has a fleet of other vehicles which serve as his security."
}