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{
    "id": 471029,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/471029/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 166,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "particular proposed amendment is very important because it clarifies where the buck stops with regard to overall responsibility. On the issue of the administrative reporting by the Fund Account Manager, this matter has more or less been a circus. I remember at one point we engaged the then Minister for Planning and National Development, hon. Oparanya, who was in charge of the CDF, in one of the sessions in Mombasa. One of the most laughable sessions was when he was lamenting that for a month, he was unable to locate his Fund Account Manager. If the Minister then, and even now, cannot locate a Fund Account Manager for a whole month, clearly, the Fund Account Managers, as it is today, are some of the most underworked and underpaid Kenyans in the whole country. Some of these fellows hardly report to work for one day in a week. Therefore, this proposed amendment to Regulation 22 to provide for administrative reporting for them is very important. Now, at least we know that they will be accountable to someone at the constituency level. As I rush to conclude, I wish to touch on the approval of the budget of the Board. The Board of the CDF is vetted by the National Assembly Select Committee. Since the National Assembly Select Committee (NASC) vets the Board, it is equally important that the same Committee and the Kenya National Assembly provide oversight as to how the Board spends public funds that have been entrusted to it. Hon. Speaker, what we have found in the past is that, because of the absence of these oversight responsibilities, many board members have converted themselves into executive board members where they spend too much at the board secretariat, in a sense trying to get into operational details of how the board is run, and of course drawing allowances while at it. I think this provision will address such a lacuna which allows allocations for board activities which are in any case, frivolous and do not add value to the operations of the fund. As I conclude, the proposal to set the minimum to Kshs.100 million should have come earlier so that it should have been effected in the 2014/2015 Financial Year. I have sat in the CDF committee since I was privileged to join this House in 2008. If you see the impact that CDF has had all over the Kenyan landscape, you will be surprised. We went to places where before the advent of CDF, hardly ten years ago, they only had one secondary school, but through CDF they have been able to increase not just enrolment in secondary schools but they have built 20 secondary schools. The impact is there for all to see. What I would urge the Committee headed by my good friend and our Chairman, hon. Lessonet is to have--- there has been a lot of talk on what CDF is doing and what it is not doing. I think now we need to move a step further and conduct a thorough impact assessment of CDF, so that Kenyans can see clearly what this fund has done for the ten years that it has been there."
}