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{
    "id": 469068,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/469068/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 99,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I want to urge the Government to go further and support the TA by doing two things: First, the unbounding of functions. This means that there must be a clear definition in re-looking at the functions themselves and for the Government to tell us; when they say “referral hospitals” or when you allocate a function like the provincial hospitals to a county and give a grant to support that function, are you trying to say that that function should have been a function of national Government? What defines what a referral hospital is? What defines how to graduate a county hospital to a referral hospital? Does it depend on the person who built it or the size of the hospital? That is important because the Constitution provides that resources will follow functions. If the functions are not defined well, we will have a situation which will be very difficult. Members of the public who came to talk to us were saying that it was even more difficult for them to interrogate the Budget because there is no clear basis of saying that this function is costing this much and this function has been allocated to this level. For example, when you look for money for disaster, there is no clear definition as to what is a county disaster. Is a landslide in Kerio Valley of Elegeyo-Marakwet County a county disaster or a national disaster? If there is drought in Turkana, at what magnitude can you say that, that is a county disaster or a national disaster and when do you require national intervention and when do you require county intervention? So, it is important that this exercise is done and taken seriously. We also established that the TA, in its mandate to allocate resources for initial infrastructure for counties--- There are many counties which do not have the basic infrastructure for the county government to operate. I visited the county the other day and the Governor is operating in a small corner of a squeezed office. I was also looking for a small office for myself and I could not find it. So the Governor told me that anytime you come to the county, you can come and sit at one corner of my office. So the boardroom and the main office is in one place. We were told the same story about Tharaka-Nithi County. We were told the same of Nyandarua County which is administered from another county. To avoid such a situation, the county government has hired a church. So, they are sharing a church building with the Bishop. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when we asked the TA how they shared out resources which were given to them, which were supposed to be shared out equitably, they were not able to tell us how they came up with Kshs61 million for every county. It is important going forward that, again, the structure and the process of allocation of such resources is defined. The question of un-bounding of resources is also important of staff. There are staff who were seconded to the national Government to work from the county like the Agriculture Extension Officers, health officers and nurses. A clear identification of those functions and resources and the resources allocated to the counties is important because we will be able to know how much will be Recurrent Expenditure in the county and how much is Development Expenditure. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other issue which is very critical is debt sustainability. I support this Bill to the extent that we also need to support counties to ensure that they are not going to travel out of this country to look for loans. We were told that in some of the counties, the Governor is out of the country looking for loans or persons to grant them loans without appreciation of the fact that loan management is a function of the national Government and is supposed to be guaranteed by the national Government. We might 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."
}