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{
    "id": 492057,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/492057/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 345,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Elachi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13115,
        "legal_name": "Beatrice Elachi",
        "slug": "beatrice-elachi"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, this House must decide whether it wants to stand, support, defend and protect the interests of county governments or whether it wants to close shop and go home. The reason we are fighting and struggling with this Senate today is because most of the Members have not taken seriously the issues that brought them to the Senate. Therefore, governors have taken advantage of the way we take our politics; we play very good politics outside but we are not doing the right things inside the House. Today, Isiolo is burning with serious issues. We must look into the issues because we know that the people of Isiolo agreed to consider clans in their issues. This is not a region like western where we, leaders, agree as Kakamega. These are counties that agree even on positions as clans. When the Speaker is told by the court that he can no longer be a leader or the Speaker of the County Assembly and yet he is from a clan that agreed to join and ensure that there is cohesion in that county, then that causes fire. Very soon, members of that clan will come up and you will see how Isiolo will change because we will start seeing warring factions. This Senate must stand and ensure that does not happen in Isiolo. We know that we have the same challenges in Mandera. Therefore, we must be very serious when we look at issues of counties. You will remember when we were coming up with the new boundaries and how they fought for the boundaries. They could not even agree to come together and today we want to split them. When we talk about the issues of Makueni, the governors are the ones on the front line saying that Makueni County Government should be dissolved; the Senate should ask itself what its roles are. It is not the role of the governors to tell Kenyans how a county should be dissolved and how another one should continue. It is the role of the Senate to come out clearly on the issue so that Kenyans know it is the Senate that decides. Even for the President to dissolve a county – under Article 192 – he has to wait for the Senate to approve that dissolution. However, because of all the politics we see in the media, people do not even know whether, indeed, the Senate will approve that. As we adjourn, I hope we will not take flights to go for different meetings that I am hearing about; Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and The Hague. I hope we are adjourning to deal with the burning issues that are in this country. I hope that is what we are going to do. I understand that we should not adjourn for committees to do their work when we have just come back from recess. I think it is important for Kenyans to know that we are adjourning to go and deal with the issues of Makueni and Isiolo counties."
}