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{
    "id": 469066,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/469066/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 97,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill. This is a very important Bill, being the first Bill that we are debating since we became Senators and since the Senate was re-established. I want to comment the Jubilee Government for doing the best and showing their ambition in their manifesto that says that they will raise the revenue allocated to counties up to 40 per cent in the next five years. It is commendable that they have started with 31.2 per cent or thereabout. It is important to note that these resources are necessary to ensure that counties start with a big bang. The Constitution, in the Sixth Schedule provides that in devolution, there is a possibility of functions and resources being phased out, but this Government has gone out of its way to do a big bang devolution. That means that all the functions are being allocated to the counties at once and the resources necessary to ensure that those counties are performing their functions are being allocated. So, it is commendable that the Ministry of Finance or Treasury and the Jubilee Government are doing such a good job. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is also important to note that the amount of resources being allocated takes into cognizance the requirement that no county should be harmed as a result of devolution. As a result, an attempt was made to ensure that counties are held harmless. However, as we shall demonstrate tomorrow, as a Committee, that is, the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Devolution, there are still some counties which are going to be harmed if the process is going to be implemented. One of those counties is Elgeyo-Marakwet where I come from. There is a deficit in terms of allocation to ensure that the functions that are being performed by the county are achieved. The other counties are Mombasa, Nairobi, Nyeri, Kisumu, but I am not sure about Bungoma. I will cross-check. It is important to note that although Treasury has said that it has done costing on the functions, there is still confusion in terms of how that costing was done. We, as a Committee, had a chance to interact with the Transition Authority officials on matters of devolved governments. One of the things we asked was the progress in terms of costing of functions. We realized that nothing much has been done by the TA. Treasury is using historical costs in terms of how functions used to be run in various districts compounding them together and getting a basis. It is important to have that historical basis, but it is not enough. 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."
}