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"content": "boring Houses that you can ever imagine. I want to encourage my brother, Sen. Haji, that every time I talk about the provincial administration, I definitely do not have him in mind. He is a fine man. He was my Provincial Commissioner in western and he used to sit in our PGs. I used to eat in his house and he left western without blemish. On that, I will stand for him. But there are other crooks in the service as well! Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I was saying, everywhere I go, MCAs and their speakers are asking: “How can the Senate help us craft relevant, meaningful, helpful legislation?” I think this is a duty of this House as custodians and protectors of devolution and the counties. I think the offices of the Speaker and the Clerk must develop enough capacity for us, as a Senate, to lend a hand. For example, as we cry about Turkana and the oil, one would expect that the Government of Turkana County can craft good legislation to make sure that they benefit from this resource and, to some degree, help the people of Turkana. The same is true for the counties of Baringo, Nakuru, and Garissa when they get their own oil, and so on, and so forth. So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to encourage that in building capacity in the counties to help them benefit from these natural resources, this Senate has a duty. I know it is not recommended in this Report and probably it is not a matter that arose when they were deliberating, but this Senate will do a great deal to guide the counties, because they are like children who have been thrown in a swimming pool and told to learn how to swim. I have seen all manner of former clerks at Parliament here who have picked up jobs; people who could not even sit at the table are now clerks of the assemblies and so on, and so forth. That capacity is part of our responsibility, and we must partner with each and every county to help them legislate and come up with legislation that will help them raise resources without hurting the public. Legislation that will help them look after the resources, apart from the national legislation on resource management, legislation that will help them get insulated from investors coming in and taking advantage. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, remember that under the Constitution, land belongs largely to the counties. If oil is found in land belonging to the county and the engagement is that the National Government and the investor, and those drilling oil or geothermal energy are involved while the counties are left nowhere, at the end of the day, as the national government grows richer, the county governments grow poorer. That is not right. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to support this Report by urging, as an orbiter, that this Senate should seriously consider – through your office and the Office of the Clerk, who works with you – that we embark on building capacity for the counties to carry out their legislative work that can help the counties to protect resources, raise revenue, guard these revenues and to develop the counties. That way, we will be very helpful. Finally, if this country has to grow and achieve Vision 2030--- If you read Vision 2030 and addendums thereto, you are told that by 2016, our cost of electricity – I think my brother, Sen. Murungi bears me witness on this – will drop from 19 US cents per Kilowatt hour to 8 US cents per kilowatt hour. I hope we will achieve that. If we did that, I can assure you that all the investors who are overflying Kenya to Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania will come back here. This is because we have the international hub here. We have one of the most educated work force in the entire Africa. We have the most 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."
}