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"id": 437183,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Wamatangi",
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"legal_name": "Paul Kimani Wamatangi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. For the sake of the success of our counties and the quest of this House that devolution may succeed, I rise to support this Motion. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in hindsight, the determination of Members of this House across the board is not in doubt. We have all devoted ourselves to make sure that devolution will succeed. That was evidently illustrated sometimes back when we, irrespective of party affiliation led our Speaker, went to the Supreme Court, to ensure that, that effort was not defeated. The ideal situation would be, in the next few years, to see a situation where the revenue divided between counties and the national Government would even be split on a 50/50 basis. The road towards that dream and time when the resources will be taken to our people must be clear. It must be clear by setting proper standards and ensuring that what needs to be done must be done. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we could just use some of the provisions of the current Division of Revenue Bill to see what needs to be done to make sure that, that is cleared, we could start by looking at what is the basis of equitable distribution or division of revenue. The costing of functions assigned to each level of Government forms the basis of equitable division of revenue in line with the principle that finance should follow functions. From a comparison of the proposed allocations of revenue between the national Government and county governments by the national Treasury, the Inter- governmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) and the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), it is clear that there are a number of issues in regard to the approach adopted in costing functions by these three entities. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the first issue that arises is a question that we need to ask ourselves. Why do we have significantly different figures for county governments equitable share for this year; 2014/2015? It is clear that the approach used by those three entities is different in the baseline of computation of the county functions adopted, as the main reason for the differences stated by the CRA and the national Treasury. The CRA adopted historical allocations approach, based on the two outer years of Estimates, that is 2014/2015, for the Ministries and the Estimate of Recurrent and Development Expenditure for the year 2012/2013. The national Treasury based their computation on the cost of devolved functions on the approved Division of Revenue Bill, 2013, which was Kshs190 billion. Therefore, it is important for us to note that the difference between the figure used as the baseline for the cost of devolved functions by the CRA and the national Treasury this year was Kshs40.8 billion. That should lead us to some important observations as a House. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, first, we, as Parliament, should interrogate the reasons for the conflicting approach and the baseline used in costing of those county functions between the CRA and the national Treasury, in order to ensure that the basis of costing this estimation is made clear. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, this is important in ensuring that counties receive adequate resources, to ensure that service delivery is not adversely affected. Thirdly, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) should welcome the CRA together with 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."
}