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"id": 469484,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/469484/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "The Senator for Kisumu County",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "(Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o): Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Motion by my friend, Sen. Orengo, which has been seconded by Sen. Kiraitu Murungi from Meru. I also must appreciate the contribution of my long time friend, G.G. Kariuki, the Senator from Laikipia. I want to make a few points on this Motion and I also want to make an amendment, particularly to capture some of the issues that Sen. G.G. Kariuki was talking about. But let me assure you that this is not an apparition; this is me. It is not an image of me, it is actually I. So, I thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir, and my fellow Senators for giving me solidarity and I want to thank you for this very cordial Chamber that we are in. I think this is a very good atmosphere to meet in. I think it is going to lead to very constructive deliberations. The first point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, Sir, is that the counties that we have established, as Sen. Orengo said, are actually going to be entities for doing business. And if you are going to do a business and your balance sheet is not in order, you cannot borrow money. So, the first thing that must be done is for these counties to have proper balance sheets so that they can be able to borrow money and invest. Because one other thing we are going to do as a Senate, as Sen. G.G. Kariuki said, is to look for money for these counties, and this money is not just going to come from Government. This money will have to come from other sources where the Constitution allows the counties to borrow money from. Therefore, our first responsibility, as Senators, is to look at the balance sheets of these counties and like all the speakers have said before, they are not in very good shape. I was the Chairman of the Public Investments Committee (PIC) for about three years in the mid 1990s, and Sen. Leshore was in my Committee; one of the things we realized is that most of the county councils or districts then had not had their books audited for 17, 20 or even 25 years, and it was very difficult for them to do business with anybody. We remember dealing with a lot of private sector entities who were owed money by these entities and it was very difficult to recover. That is o ne point. The second point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, Sir, is that when we look at some of the money that was owed to county councils or districts then, some of them were debts which could have been paid. As Sen. G.G. Kariuki says, in those days, a district officer or a district commissioner could be ordered to give money to somebody, just because that somebody was somebody. Now, this is the kind of money that cannot just be written off; it must be paid. The third thing is that a lot of money owed by county councils are actually statutory deductions; money that should have been paid to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF)---"
}