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"content": "(DFRD). This was driven by none other than Simeon Nyachae. All who care to read the political history of this country know that the reason Moi was doing that was because he realized that to plan, budget for and implement development uniformly across the country, we needed to do it in every district. However, this thing flopped because it was left to the discretion of heads of line Ministries. I must pay tribute to Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki Karue because in 2003, he led us to pass the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). The CDF was also speaking to the issue of inequality. We attempted, and as Sen. Kajwang once told us in this House, that CDF was like John the Baptist who came before Jesus Christ. The CDF was John the Baptist and Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the current devolution. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in 2010 when the new Constitution was promulgated, it opened a new opportunity which I challenge all those young people in the National Assembly who think they are now the custodians of wisdom, to tell me one line in the Constitution, one line, one paragraph, one article or one chapter that legitimizes CDF. The CDF is nothing; it is devolution which we must all support. I want to urge all Members of Parliament from the great county of Kakamega, 12 of them, to sit back and think that if devolution is a small thing, how come in all the 12 constituencies none of the sitting Members of Parliament ever got half of the votes I was getting in their constituencies? In fact, in one of the largest constituencies in Kakamega, Malaba, I got 47,000 votes. The sitting Member of the National Assembly got about 15,000 votes. That means that I have a greater mandate to fulfill and cry for even if you call me a cry baby. Really, can a bull fighter be a cry baby? That is not possible. It is the mandate that makes us cry. The Tenth Parliament where I was privileged to sit, decided to correct the fallacy that befell the DFFRD which was lack of legislation. We went beyond the Constitution and created nine critical laws so that we would not go wrong. Allow me to remind the country what laws these are. We used to enact them in this very Chamber. I can see some Clerks-at-the-Table, including Mr. Njenga, whom we used to sit with here until midnight creating the County Governments Act, the Transition to Devolved Governments Act, the Inter-Governmental Relations Act, the Urban Areas and Cities Act, the Public Finance Management Act, the National Government Coordination Act, the Commission of Revenue Act, the County Governments Public Finance Management Transition Act, the Division of Revenue Act, the Transition of County Allocation Revenue Act and the Transition Appropriation Act. We did this to make it work. It is working only that it is working with hiccups. Let us face these hiccups the way Sen. Kagwe, Sen. Orengo and the Senator for Migori, my senior, Dr. Machage has faced it. The problem is that there is either deliberate or accidental failure to read Article 115 of the Constitution of Kenya. Article 115 speaks to the Presidential assent and referral of a Bill. Allow me to read that Article 115(1) “Within fourteen days after receipt of a Bill, the President shall- (a) assent to the Bill; or 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."
}