Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 467293,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/467293/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 53,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "“THAT, the Senate intervenes to facilitate the reversal of the said transfer of personnel emolument to county governments until such a time when the county government shall be capable to take this function from the national government and until county governments fulfill the requirements of the County Government Act of 2012 and the Transition to Devolved Government Act, 2012.” Who determines when that county government will be capable? Who determines that? That responsibility is the work of the Transition Authority (TA). If the TA has so determined that your county can handle that function, and that function has been given to the county, there is no way an employee or staff can say “Sorry, we are not ready.” I think, really, this is not acceptable and we cannot detach payment of emoluments from staffing, discipline, transfers and all other aspects of human resource. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the concern here is emoluments. This Senate has the responsibility of ensuring that counties have adequate finance to pay for salaries. In discussing the Division of Revenue Bill and the County Allocation of Revenue Bill here, our primary responsibility was to ensure that there is money for the functions that have been devolved. There is no way we can allow any county government to carry out a function if there are no commensurate resources. Therefore, it does not make sense that somebody says that you can transfer functions, but because there is no money and those institutions cannot pay my salary, my salary should remain with Nairobi. That decision is ours; we are already making the relevant Bills to ensure that resources for all those functions are made available. Lastly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say that it is going to set a precedent if we allow employees of any particular Ministry or department to say “We are not ready to be paid by county governments; we want to be paid by the national Government.” That is not acceptable! Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to add, again, that indeed, there is an institution called the Summit, that brings together the Executive and the county governors. To the best of my knowledge, that institution has an arrangement worked out where county governments themselves requested that in terms of the payroll, the national Government continues handling it for a period of time. I think these things can be debated and discussed by the respective county governments in accordance with the Constitution that allowed inter-governmental relations. So, I find this Petition is something that flies in the face of our mandate, which is to protect the county governments and to ensure that devolution is entrenched. So, I think I will not support it. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir."
}