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    "id": 406401,
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    "content": "the Permanent Secretary for Public Works – and I am happy that the two are today Members of this House – they initiated an assessment where they realized that a number of counties did not have adequate facilities in terms of giving counties an opportunity to start off their functions. Among these, they identified three counties which had no facilities at all on the basis of where their headquarters – which were decided through a public participation process – were located. One of those counties is Nyandarua; another county is Tana River and the other county is Tharaka-Nithi. In fact, the Tharaka-Nithi case was even highlighted in newspapers a few months after we were elected into office this year, where it was reported – and it is true – that the county assembly was conducting its activities under a tent, which was donated by the Senator for Tharaka Nithi. The situation in the three counties is so grave that Tana River, Nyandarua and Tharaka Nithi would require the national Government to give them a bit of support so that they can have basic facilities to allow the Governor and the county executive to have some offices, as well as the county assembly, to shield them from the elements of the weather. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am giving this background so as to answer the question “why the three counties?” But on a general perspective of this matter, I think going forward as this House, when we are doing the horizontal allocation of national revenue, the infrastructural capacities of each and every county should always be considered before we determine how much counties get. Because the physical infrastructure, as been the case in several instances now, depends on the needs of counties. So, these three counties – it is in the public knowledge – are counties that require the input of the national Government so that they can have the basic infrastructure, for example, a debating chamber for the county assembly, an office for the Governor and members of the executive committee so that they can at least start off on the same level as other counties in the Republic. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I just want to say that the language used in this Motion is straight forward. First of all, the constitutional basis has been established and it is also there in the Sixth Schedule, Section 15 (2), but more importantly, it is also in Article 174 of the Constitution that says that some of the reasons for devolution is to make sure that people access services. Now, one may ask, how come the choice of places for these headquarters is such that there were no facilities at all? It is for the same reasons that are stated in Article 174. For example, in Tharaka-Nithi County, there were one or two urban centres which could have been considered to be headquarters but they were on the periphery. A good example is Chuka Town which is nearly 198 kilometres from some of the villages on the other parts of Tharaka-Nithi County. The means of transport and the roads there are not proper. People use bicycles and other very unreliable public means. So, it was deemed that if you put the headquarters and the Governor and the county assembly at Chuka 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."
}