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{
    "id": 429087,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/429087/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 306,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Wandayi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2960,
        "legal_name": "James Opiyo Wandayi",
        "slug": "james-opiyo-wandayi"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Bill. I want to start by expressing my reservations about transparency. When we talk about the allocation of funds, indeed, the Constitution, under Article 202, talks specifically about equitable allocation of funds between the two levels of Government. How would one determine equitability without, first and foremost, understanding which functions fall where and, secondly, without understanding the real cost of those functions? Through and through in this Bill, references have been to the fact that the costing of those functions has not been done. That is about four years since the promulgation of this Constitution and nearly two years after the first election under this Constitution. We are not being told when such costing is ever going to be done. Therefore, you find a problem in agreeing with the contents of this Bill. When we talk about 43 per cent of the revenues based on the last audited accounts of revenue, and we are also told that those accounts of revenue are in respect to the 2009/2010 Financial Year, then you see the mischief! It is not possible that this Bill may talk of 43 per cent and then make us believe that, that is far much higher than the 15 per cent that is envisaged in the Constitution. The reality is that the Kshs226 billion is actually just about 22 per cent of the total sharable revenue, which is about Kshs1,026.31 billion in this Bill. The question then that one would want to ask is: If for any particular or strange reason, the accounts of revenue do not get audited, or if for any reason they get audited but Parliament does not approve them for, let us say, ten years, shall it continue making reference to the last audited accounts of revenue? That is the question and, therefore, in my view, this 43 per cent is basically a red herring. The reality of the matter is that, until and unless we do proper costing of the functions after determining which functions have been transferred to the counties, there is no day I will be convinced that this Bill is going to support devolution as we know it. We are being told that the Bill is attempting to explain deviations from the recommendations of Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA). The Constitution makes reference to deviation. The operating word here is “deviation”. But if you look at this Bill, it has basically ignored in totality the recommendations of CRA. It has basically rubbished the recommendations of CRA. That is because CRA is recommending a total sum of Kshs279 billion shillings to be allocated to the counties. It is doing so on the basis of some scientific analysis. But this Bill is attempting to rubbish the work of CRA with a pre-determined mind. It is meant to make the public believe that CRA has not done what it is supposed to do. The CRA is a constitutional Commission. In fact, one of its principal functions is to make The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}