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"content": "to publish in a website the details of all expenses so that wananchi are able to engage them immediately. For example, if you issue a tender, you must record in that website information about who applied for that tender, how they were shortlisted and who was shortlisted, how much money each of them proposed to spend; why the first one was not given the tender and, instead, the second one got it. This is the only way to do it. If, for example, you travel for benchmarking, then you must indicate how many people travelled for that trip, the names of those who travelled, how much money they spent on that trip, how much the per diem for each person was, who they engaged wherever they went, what value they got out of the people they engaged and what is the expected benefit to the county when that happens. For example, the Committee on Information and Technology went to benchmark in Berlin, Germany, the other day and it was in the County of Hamburg that we got the idea of this; the County Resource Management Transparency Bill. So, this Senate and this country are going to have a direct benefit from the benchmarking that the Committee on Information and Technology did in Berlin, Germany. This is what we are talking about; let us see the results of where you went. Madam Temporary Speaker, the other day I was taken to task when I spoke about travelling. I was told that the Senate itself is travelling, why then would we stop the Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) from travelling? Let me make it clear that I am all for benchmarking; I have nothing against benchmarking even by the counties. However, it is important to remember that when we advise here in the Senate that “let us limit expenditure to say one person per year” or so, then people say “also limit the Senate to the same thing.” Two things arise; one, these people have different roles in the country. Two, even when you look at the number of Members County Assemblies (MCAs); 2,300 of them, if each MCA took one trip, that would be 2,300 trips out of Kenya in one year. If the 67 Senators, each took 10 trips a year, that would be 670 trips. So, let us do simple mathematics. I am not proposing that we go ten times because we do not have the time to do it anyway. However, let us compare oranges with oranges and pineapples with pineapples. Let us never compare pineapples with oranges because that is a different animal altogether. I heard my colleague and many of you, including I, propose that the Senate should also be treated the same as the National Assembly in terms of funding for our own office use. Let us make it clear that what I would propose would be funding to ensure that a Senator can ably contribute to legislation. If we go on this path where we say each legislator; every ward representative and everybody should get a fund for use in harambees, this will be a complete mess. You can imagine going to a county as a Senator and saying that you are contributing Kshs50,000 for a bridge. The Governor would then stand up and say; “that is peanuts; I have brought Kshs200,000 for the bridge.” The CDF person would then stand up and say; “if this is about competition, so be it. I have 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."
}