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"speaker_name": "Sen. Elachi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I rise to second this Motion. While we talk about ceilings today, we also need to understand that the country is watching the institution of the Senate. We have had a lot of consultations since November when this issue was raised by the County Assemblies Forum. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when we talk about the ceilings, I know that it is not a friendly subject but, indeed, it is also within the Constitution that we ensured that we have county assemblies. Therefore, it would be very unfortunate if we looked at the institutions of the county assemblies going down because of the issues of ceilings. I know that even in the newspapers today, one of the county assemblies is now closing shop. Bomet is also on the way and many others. Therefore, as the Senate Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget, we have had a lot of consultations with different institutions that are supposed to ensure that we have, indeed, clear mechanisms of how we can resolve the challenges we are facing, knowing very well that we have a lot of teething problems in devolution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to start by telling the county assemblies that as we support them, they should also know that they are the ones who created this same problem. Indeed, if they would have heeded the call of the Senators to look at some of their foreign travels, try to reduce some of them and ensure that they do some of these benchmarkings within the country, they would not be facing this problem. But at that time, it was very difficult to convince them until now, when they have realized that, indeed, when you spend your money without checks and balances, you will find yourselves in problems. That is where they are now. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when we proposed the ceilings in this House, it was just a proposal. But the Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA) reported back to us that they were able to save Kshs10 billion after putting on the ceilings, which is good. But then, when you look at that saving, then you ask the next question: When we were putting the ceilings, they were not just for the county assemblies; it was both for the Executive and the county assemblies to ensure that within their recurrent expenditures, they can put in a ceiling so that they have money for development. But we put a ceiling which affected the county assembly and created a County Executive Committee (CEC) 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."
}