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{
    "id": 415322,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/415322/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 177,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I am saying this governor must go home because when you want to be a governor in this country, you must read the Constitution and understand your responsibilities. I have looked at the duties of the President of the Republic of Kenya. The President under the Constitution of Kenya exercises executive authority of the Republic of Kenya; that is not clear as much as the mandate of the governor. If you look at Article 179(4) of the Constitution of Kenya, it says the governor shall be the chief executive of the county. So, if you want to be a governor, you must be prepared to be the chief executive officer. If you have doubts in your mind that you cannot operate as a chief executive officer of a county, then you are doing the wrong job. If this Senate was leaking today, it would not reflect on the messenger of the Senate, it would not reflect on the Clerk, it would reflect on the Speaker of the Senate that is presiding in a Chamber that is leaking. When I was confronted with the evidence that was coming from Governor Wambora and compared to the other evidence that was coming, he gave me the attitude that if he was in charge of a police station and his officers were taking bribes, Governor Wambora would say that it is not me taking the bribes, it is the officers doing so. If you are a proper commander leading a police station, you should not allow a situation where your own officers are taking bribes. It is your responsibility to make sure that it does not happen. If you have a house and you find it leaking, you do not say “I am not a fundi, therefore, there is nothing I can do about it”. So, looking at Embu County, it is really unfortunate, it has a dysfunctional government and the only way to get it right is to send Governor Wambora home. The thing that amazed me was the evidence in relation to the maize saga. There is an officer, a very dutiful officer, the director for agriculture. He consulted and went out to find out the proper variety that was proper for the County of Embu. That variety was exhibited to us, what he had given to the county executive, he said that the County of Embu should have a particular variety of maize called KDV1 or KDV6 and there was documentary evidence to that effect, that during procurement, you must make sure that you get the right variety of maize. What does the Governor and his officials do? When they went for the procurement of maize, they went for a completely different variety of maize. That is why I think even his own counsel was saying that “this whole thing was a fiasco”. It was a fiasco because when a Governor has a public event to launch the maize and yet it is maize that has been condemned, it was like the King who was naked and it took a child to tell him that he was naked. It was the director of agriculture who had told him that that was not the right variety of maize. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to advance the argument that devolution either starts right or starts wrong. It will start right if we care about the small things. To put Sen. Ongera at peace, the small thing about Bill Clinton is not what Sen. Ongera is thinking about, I think she has a very fanciful imagination. It was about lying on oath; that a public officer in a responsible office should not lie under oath. The small thing about King David, I do not know. I do not want to talk about it. So, if we get devolution wrong, we are telling our governors that you need to steal Kshs1 billion before we can take action. I think the whole devolution process will die. The Constitution itself says that the objective of devolution is to promote accountability, democracy and efficient use of resources. The 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."
}