HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 439027,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/439027/?format=api",
"text_counter": 255,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Sir, just to continue the list of mischief, Governors intend to hire big offices in Nairobi and work from Nairobi as the headquarters of their counties. They have raised it up, they are even in the process of even hiring a big house and then they have all the work and pronouncements from Nairobi for the purposes of managing their counties. This is not acceptable. Indeed, Chapter 265 of our Kenyan laws, the 2012 Edition describes the County Government Act, but it only talks about county governments function, powers, county assemblies, electoral wards, county executive, decentralized units, county public service, county planning, et cetera . But it does not describe or identify the seat of the county power. The Constitution of Kenya, 2010, describes the centre of power of Kenya Government as Nairobi. It also describes the number and names of county governments, but falls short of actually describing the seats of power of the 47 county governments. Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is the anomaly that the Mover of this Motion, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale, has thought of wisely to have an annex to the County Governments Act that describes the actual places where the headquarters of county governments will be. In his elucidation of the names of the different headquarters, calling it a Third Schedule, you may have noted in number 17 that he has included Wote, which is not written on this paper. He has also included Mbale, number 38, which was not written on this paper and, maybe, described the controversy of the headquarters position in Migori, which is not there anymore. The Migori people have accepted; they have even identified an area in Lichota area as the area for building Migori County Headquarters within Migori Municipality. I will, therefore, request the Mover, because he is allowed by the Standing Orders of this House, to come up with an amended list that will show properly the names of the Third Schedule to include Wote and Mbale. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is important that these names are read and understood as will be written in this law. Because if you look at a county like Samburu, you cannot just imagine that a town in Samburu will be the headquarters without mentioning Maralal, because we also have Samburu in the Coast. So, just mentioning Samburu may make somebody to move to the Coast to look for the headquarters of Samburu; or some mad person may decide to build the headquarters of Samburu in Samburu, which is at the Coast! So, the law must be explicit and self-explanatory so that no mischievous person would try to move the headquarters once set. We also have the scenario of Thika, Kiambu, as has been seen so far; and many others are being planned. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would encourage the county governments to also come up with their own by-laws to fix the headquarters of the sub-counties so that, again, nobody comes up with that mischief of trying to play around with the headquarters of the sub-counties, as is happening in very many areas, including Migori County where we have a problem with Ntimaru and Kegonga. A law has to be fixed at that level to very much describe the actual geographical location of headquarters of every described centre of power at the devolved units. Mr. Speaker, Sir, without much ado, this is a simple Bill to understand and I need not take a lot of time on it. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to second. 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."
}