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{
    "id": 499940,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/499940/?format=api",
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    "content": "space so that we can practice what brought us here as per the Constitution. As I speak, it is with a heavy heart because we are heading where our President will be ashamed by the acts of the National Assembly and those who are supposed to advise him. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, devolution is too sweet. Each and every county is enjoying water. Every county has a testimony that at least some roads have been done. Every county can at least run to the county government for a solution whenever there is a crisis. In some areas where we are experiencing drought, the county government is there to feed its people. Right now, what many Kenyans are asking is that they need more devolution. We need more functions to be devolved. I think it has even reached a stage where to appoint a chief or an assistant chief should not be done in Nairobi. It can be done at the Governor’s office. At the county level, we know our people. We do not need a decision to be made in Nairobi. It is us who know which school requires classrooms and which one needs to be registered. That should not be the work of the national Government. We can talk of the sweetness of devolution and even go on and demand for more functions to be devolved. Anyone who thinks that he can kill devolution by killing the Senate is not only a day dreamer, but a person who has not visited the counties to know what is happening. There is a lot which has been happening in the counties. Even if here at the Senate, through our oversight role, we are able to see that some governors are misappropriating funds, still a lot has been achieved in one year. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me remind this Senate that the first allocation to the counties was actually an amount we contested as the Senate. We even wanted more funds, but it is the National Assembly which watered it down. Even after that, the little amount which went to the counties has been felt. The old and the young people in the counties will not just sit there and listen to those talking about the Senate having mature people as one lady Member of Parliament said yesterday. I wondered what she meant because she was a female Member of Parliament. If you were to test the maturity of Senators and yet all elected Senators are male, does she really want to know whether we are mature. She could try it with one of us. I think time has come for the Senate to define its boundaries."
}