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{
    "id": 436918,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/436918/?format=api",
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    "content": "proposals and the President will anyway sign what they have done like he did last year and that you can go back to last year’s allocation which is much less than Kshs226 billion. This is called blackmail! Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Senate shall not and will not be blackmailed into degenerating into a rubber stamp. Let this year be the very last that this Senate is being used to rubber stamp a mischief. This is a House of Representatives of counties. We represent, defend counties and we stand for counties. Listening to the Seconder of this Bill, you feel sorry for this House. If you want to use your majority to have chairpersons of committees, then have people who are committed to devolution. Let people who understand the pain of a family in Turkana eating a dog because they have no meals be the chairpersons. Another family in Baringo eating a family pet, the cat, because they do not have money and the rest of us are airborne. That is what devolution came to Kenya for. The El Molo on the shores of Lake Turkana will stop having flies biting their eyes from morning to evening and yet your children are being taken to school in Mercedes Benz. This is what devolution came for. We will be failing this country and even failing ourselves and the people of this country if this Senate was to sit here and pretend with very attractive figures that Kshs226 billion is 43 per cent of the shareable revenue. This is cheap propaganda that those who peddle it will one day be asked to account and answer for because when you tell the truth, you do not have to remember anything. However, when you peddle lies and untruths, you will be held to account by the people who elected you and the people of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Senate in trying to approve this Kshs226 billion, is betraying the Constitution. It is betraying Kenyans and also betraying devolution. Let it be known. Now that we are sending money to the counties, I want to come to another point. Our brothers, the governors, we are sending you money which is inadequate, but we want you to know that in the Senate you have a friend. I want the governors to know that in the Senate, they have a defender. We will defend each one of them as long as they do right. Those who do not do right have no friend in this Senate. Those who do not account have no friend in this Senate. As we deal with revenue allocation, this country has a runaway insecurity. Before we even get to actual allocations, I want to urge the Jubilee regime that there is a requirement that security in counties must have a governor chairing a committee. Today, the President was launching a strengthened provincial administration. What that is going to do on a daily basis is to undermine governors and devolution. The County Commissioners are going to deal with day today running of issues. Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are now on a highway to turn our governors into glorified chairman of county councils. This is very dangerous. If the national Government in Kirinyaga is busy dealing with a man called county commissioner and you have the governor, what is the role and value of the governor? Then we say in the Constitution that the county governments and the national Government are dependent and inter-dependent. But how can you be dependent and inter-dependent when you have a parallel system next to you? We say the governor cannot preside over security meetings, but when things go 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."
}