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{
    "id": 533687,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/533687/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 551,
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    "content": "The law will catch up with them, they are the executives, they run an institution, and they must comply with the Appropriation Act and limit themselves to those specific items for which that money has been voted. We have seen very many of them in the reports that have been released by various institutions - the amount of wastage, inefficiencies, the implications, the double payments, the transfer and the stealing. I think it is very important that the governors appreciate that the concept of devolution is to send resources for the development of the counties. So that they do not wait for Nairobi, the concept of devolution is to send money to the counties so that there is efficient service delivery. You do not complain that you have no drugs because you are waiting for “Nairobi” to send you money. You do not complain that you do not have proper harvest in agriculture because the extension workers are not available. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, they are given money for service delivery and for development and that is where the money is supposed to go. At the same time, I want to challenge the county assemblies because that is the first call in terms of accountability. That is why we created those assemblies in every county; it is literally a Parliament; that is the meaning of an assembly, it is a Parliament. Those people are elected by the people of that particular county and the reason why they are elected is so that they can represent the interests of the residents of that county in holding that executive to account and enforce checks and balances which were introduced at the county level to ensure there is no mis-management of resources. County assemblies have a challenge; the fact that there is widespread misappropriation, wastage and inefficiencies in the counties is an indictmentof the county assemblies. It is not that they do not have money, they have had money in 2013/2014, and there were no ceilings. Why did county governments end up with huge amounts of money that is being wasted? They have to learn to hold the executive to account and they have to learn not to be dependent on the executive for handouts. That is the challenge that we have. County assemblies that should have provided independent checks and balances to the executive have instead gone to bed with the executive. We have a situation where there is no accountability, county governments do what they want and the executive does what they want. That is the reason why many Kenyans have expressed concerns on the resources that were going to the assemblies. If they had sufficient time, in terms of building their capacity because this is now the third year which is good enough for them to train the experts, to train and recruit the teams they want and carry out their function effectively. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, coming towards the end of my contribution on this matter, our Committee is convinced that it is necessary to determine on a very structured basis how much money goes to an assembly and how much goes to the new administrative structures for the county executive. This is what the budget ceilings are all about. It is not an attempt to starve the assemblies of money. In fact, it is the intention of this Committee to ensure that county assemblies get adequate money so that they can carry out their mandate. We give them more money so that they can save us more. The argument is that because we do not give them enough, more money is being lost, our intention was to save. The total collective budgets of the county assemblies for 2014/2015 was Kshs26 billion. In the ceilings, they were given Kshs17billion, the 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."
}