Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 531631,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/531631/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 133,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Simiyu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": "says that the national Government will take care of national referral services. It does not say the national referral services will only be in Kenyatta National Hospital and Moi Referral Hospital. I am aware that the last Cabinet approved a national referral center in every county. If that were the case, there would be no need for this conditional grant. What the national Government will do is to improve the national referral facilities in every county. A lot of these problems we are having with personnel in healthcare would not be there. As we speak now, we are leasing equipment to those counties. However, do they have the personnel? I am talking about doctors, nurses and clinical officers who have all since gone into private practice. So, who will even run that equipment? Hon. Speaker, I come from a county where hospitals are there but they are not functioning. In fact, we hired more security guards in the last three years to guard the hospitals than the number of health personnel. You, therefore, will find a hospital with only one clinical officer and seven security guards because the security guard company belongs to a relative of the governor who is paid a lot of money and which money he takes to Harambees . This is a very serious matter and unless we actually strengthen the oversight role in the counties, devolution is going down the drain and with all the hopes of Kenyans. This is because Kenyans look at devolution as the solution to their long-term development. That monitoring and evaluation role should be the next thing we should look at. We need to relook at the Public Finance Act and look at all those matters so that we ensure that there is proper monitoring and evaluation at the county level. It is all very well for us to sit and meet the timelines. We could pass this law in time because the law demands we do that. However, are we really looking at where that money is going? This should be a lesson to many governors. Perhaps, they should borrow a leaf from the Kajiado by- election because money might not be the answer for their re-election. Service delivery could just be the answer. They need to use appropriately the billions they are being allocated. They should not use that money to hire non-essential staff; rather they should use it to hire essential staff. Much of the money we are allocating them is not going to development but rather, it is going to recurrent expenditure and administration. When you look at the administration functions that they are performing, you will realize that they conduct many seminars and many travels. That is where the money is going. That cannot help this country grow. That will not help us jump from the lower end of a middle income economy to the middle level and eventually to the higher level of middle income economy. The behavior of the county governments will not assist us move up. Perhaps, we should all realize that it is CDF that contributed to this country getting to the lower level of the middle income economy. We want to see what the county governments will do to propel this country to a higher level of the middle income economy. We cannot do that with the current type of financial management that we are seeing at the county level. I support the Bill."
}