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{
    "id": 450683,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/450683/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 294,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I need to point out that I have never understood why we continue having quarrels about a Bill that should come to this House or the one that should go to the National Assembly. You can tell from this Bill that it is making the Bills better because there are better ideas that have been put in place. People have a second chance to review legislation. Therefore, I want to tell my brothers in the National Assembly that they should not fear the Senate of the Republic of Kenya. We are Kenyans who live in this county and we have the best interests of the nation at heart. The drafters of the Constitution believed that we, as the “Upper House”, will play our role responsibly and continue to contribute to the betterment of our country. This message should also go to your counterpart in the National Assembly that there is benefit in working as a team and the benefit trickles down to the people of Kenya. I want to dissuade those who have been imagining that the intention of Senators by participating in the County Development Board is anything, but to facilitate devolution. If you look at the functions of the Board which are actually captured by only four points, that it provides consultation and coordination between national Government and county governments on matters of development and projects. If you look at that consultation, you realize that in many counties, I have seen the allocation for CDF for this financial year and it is a huge amount of money. If you calculate in Elgeyo-Marakwet County, you have about Kshs400 million going to CDF. About 98 per cent of that money goes to development. That means you have over Kshs350 million going for development in the county through the CDF. If you do not have this consultation forum, how will you be able to know? The County Government itself has put in only Kshs700 million which is almost a half of the other amount. This amount of money combined, this is about Kshs1.2 million. It is more useful for the county that we sit down and agree that this road is being constructed using CDF, this project will be done by other devolved funds while this other project will be done by the county government. That consultation is important. Otherwise, we will have duplication and, in some cases, unfunded functions because of competition of who does this and the other. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other important point is to point out that looking at all these issues that are for development plans, the finance and the budgeting are all going to be put through the county assemblies, but the leadership of the county will feel like collective owners of development in the county. I want to inform the Council of Governors (CoGs) that none of us is interested in power. The Constitution does not talk about power. If you read Cap.6 of the Constitution, it talks about the responsibility given to us is to serve and not to lord it over the people of Kenya. So, any discussion out there about powers is missing the point because the emphasis of our new Constitution is service delivery. This is “servant-hood”. Therefore, the objective of us coming together to discuss development of our county is so that we can be servants. Even the Senator has a Chair. I am not interested in any power. Chairing a meeting for about two hours four times a year which means eight 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."
}