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    "id": 439354,
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    "content": "in the sense that the Leader of Majority Party who has signed this document is against certain paragraphs. He is going to sit here in the House and convince hon. Members so that we can support him. It is going to be done by a vote and if we find that the Leader of Majority Party, who is supposed to whip hon. Members to support this Bill is against the Bill from the outset, I do not understand why some of the paragraphs found their way here. Fundamentally, why I am against this Bill is because there is Section 61 which they want us to introduce. Until such a time that a law relating to imposition of rates and charges is enacted---Urban areas and cities may continue to impose rates and charges under the law for the time being. What exists at the moment is the rate used by the national Government. Why we formed counties is not for them to levy rates; it is not for them to cause misery to the people on the ground. If you look at this section, it is not minor; it is a major amendment which we want to give to the county governments. I come from Kisii County. The other day they came up with a finance bill and they were taxing the boda boda people Kshs100 per day or kshs50 per day. It is not possible and so when it comes to what they want to do or how they want to raise their rates, the amount they want to ask for is not the reason why we have a government on the ground. I have soapstone carvers in my constituency and each one of them was supposed to pay Kshs1,000. You go down to the place where they are mining soapstone, you find they have put a rate of Kshs1,000 per year for someone who has a shamba for soapstone mining. So, when you see what they imposed as tax for the ordinary person on the ground, this cannot be classified as a minor amendment. It goes to the very core on how somebody who rides a boda boda lives. Every day he wakes up to go to work, he waits on the way and before he has even ferried one passenger, he is told to pay Kshs40 from nowhere yet the roads are not maintained. So, the first thing is that I will oppose it because of that section, Another point is the Transition Authority (TA). The TA may have its challenges; it may have a few problems; it may have teething problems; they have not been perfect in their work but if you remove it and yet we have not put in place clear structures on how devolved governments are going to work, what we will be doing here is killing devolution. Another point why I am against all these amendments is that there are major parastastals in this country. These parastatals are doing research, have manpower and they have employees who have nowhere to go. This amendment is bringing us a section where they want us to delete the Acts which formed those organizations. These are organizations that have resources; they have not told us who is taking the resources; they are not telling us who will be liable for the liabilities; they are not explaining anything but they want us by the stroke of a pen--- If we pass this Bill, we will not have fisheries and marine research institutes. If we pass this Bill, we will not have the wildlife research institute at the stroke of a pen. This cannot be taken lightly by hon. Members because those organizations exist as entities. They perform certain functions and if we have to delete them, there must be clear procedure and policy to give hon. Members more time to debate on these issues so that we may understand what is going to happen to them; whether they are going to be retrenched, whether they are going to be transferred to other departments and whether they have the capacities to do that. We cannot sit here and pass a law which is going to sack quite a number of Kenyans; which is going to make existing 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."
}