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{
    "id": 474028,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/474028/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 243,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "school? If you go around, people ask you: “Senator, you say that you pushed for resources from the Senate.” We have been fighting here to ensure that we have more money that goes to the counties. If this Senate had not acted prudently, only Kshs217 billion would have gone to the counties. We worked so hard to increase it to Kshs227 billion. We are working even harder to ensure that in the next financial year, we will have more money going to the counties. But how do you work that hard and do not know exactly what that money is doing in the counties? It is important that, that message is made public and that accountability be put in place and pinned in all the centres of Elgeyo-Marakwet County, so that people can read it and say: “The reason so-and-so is now driving a Prado and not a Probox is because he was given that contract. Devolution is working because our youth have been moved from what they were to this stage.” But if it becomes a situation where the same person or supplier who was supplying to the national Government is going to do that in all the counties, we will not be able to spread the wealth in this country. Madam Temporary Speaker, I support this Bill to move development expenditure to 60 per cent. This will reduce the recurrent expenditure and the number of people who will go to Jerusalem using public funds. We are told that some people go to Jerusalem using public funds to see the birth place of Jesus Christ. What does the place where Jesus was born have to do with the Fourth Schedule? It is even worse for people who go there using public funds and they do not go to church in Kenya. If this Senate travels to a particular area, it must be benchmarking on a specific issue and a report tabled. It is not possible that 30 Senators are going to Malaysia. We must show a level of prudence. When we say this, we are not hitting the county assemblies. Even the county executives, the national Government and even this Parliament are travelling. But let us have measures that are prudent enough to ensure that recurrent expenditure is kept in check, so that development can be done in our counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, whereas money can and should be devolved to the constituency and ward level, it has come a time that we need, as a country, to pronounce ourselves as to whether the legislature can superintendent upon finances and at the same time, become the checks and balance. The county assemblies are now struggling and saying: “We must have our own Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) because we are being discriminated upon. Why are Women Representatives and Members of the National Assembly being given their money?” We must settle that matter as a nation. I know that we fear each other and ask: “What will the National Assembly say?” We must put that debate on the table, so that we agree and say: “The legislature will handle money and at the same time do oversight or that we will only do oversight.”"
}