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    "id": 497906,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/497906/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 302,
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    "content": "Earlier when county governments and this House were established, some of the first Motions we discussed dealt with providing immunity to the county governments especially with regard to debts that were accrued by the former local authorities. That Motion was moved but, unfortunately, it appears as if many of our county governments are being forced to pay the debts of the previous local authorities. Therefore, obviously, many other counties will face the challenge that Bungoma County faced as shared by the Mover of the Bill. The amount of resources allocated to the national Budget to pay the national debt is mind-boggling. We have over Kshs300 billion worth of resources being used by the national Government to pay the debts we have accrued as a nation. We hope that the little resources we are sending to our counties will go directly to development projects to our counties rather than go to recurrent expenditure or to pay debts. This is very crucial. If a county government will be faced with an option of either paying a debt of Kshs50 million or Kshs100 million or buying drugs for our dispensaries in the counties, I am sure the right thing to do will be for the counties to purchase drugs. In so doing, they may not pay their debts. Knowing the court system that exists in this country, some people are likely to go to court and obtain court orders to execute. Without these kinds of laws, our counties will lose a lot of their properties in the name of execution of court orders. Therefore, this is a very crucial Bill that will essentially protect our counties. It is also important that as counties start from a clean slate, we encourage them to live within their means so that they do not start accumulating a lot of debt five, 10 or 20 years down the line. We should subject our counties to start paying debts that they are accruing as at now. We want to call upon our county governments to live within their means and look for innovative means of generating revenue internally without rushing for some of the loans that are not well thought out. This will help our counties to grow. We need to protect the counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, State Corporations are protected under the State Corporations Act. The national Government is also protected and all the other national and public institutions are protected. It would be absurd to imagine that the Nandi Hills Town Council in my county or the Kapsabet Municipal Council or the Nandi County Council had the immunity of the law but the County Government of Nandi right now does not have that protection. This is one of the most crucial Bills in this House other than the Division of Revenue Bill and the County Allocation of Revenue Bill that this House has had to deal with which directly goes into protecting our counties. It is important for our county governments to realise that this Senate will always do what is right. We do not always read from the same page with our county governments when we are protecting them in the manner we are doing today. Today, we are protecting them, through this Bill, against forces that would easily organise processes through 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."
}