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{
    "id": 535443,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/535443/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 367,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ogolla",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1264,
        "legal_name": "Gideon Ochanda Ogolla",
        "slug": "gideon-ochanda-ogolla"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. From the Presidential Address, I see and read three main things which the House needs to look at very keenly. One, the President indicated to us what works and what is working in order for us to also see potential pitfalls that might be going with those that are working. The other thing is that the President brought out things which this Parliament needs to crosscheck to see whether they are factual or not. The third thing that I am also seeing in the Address is some level of apprehension from the President and that he is actually looking for support from this House. He wants to see exactly how we want to proceed with them. In terms of what works, it is very clear as the President indicated that issues of infrastructure are top in the whole issue of growth. One thing that we really need to appreciate particularly in terms of what the Constitution brought around is what he talked about on the extent to which revenue from mining has gone up to almost eleven to twelve fold. We are seeing how we are able to benefit from royalties from the introduction of the current Constitution. We have seen that revenues and issues to do with royalties have moved by 11 or 12 times in one year. This is one way of indicating that there are very many other creative ways in which we can generate money for purposes of supporting our economy. One of the pitfalls that I think the President fell short of mentioning is that, while all these other sectors that are supposed to help in raising revenue in this country are going up, there are indications that the county governments have fallen short.The current county governments are only raising up to a third of what the 175 local authorities were generating just before elections. While we are able to raise more money from non- traditional sources, our traditional sources are crumbling down. I think this is an indication that there is a pitfall that we really have to look at. The other thing that the President is indicating to us is the question of: Are we really watchful as Parliament? One thing that I wanted to bring out here for hon. Members to see, and I want to believe that nobody has mentioned it since we started talking about this Address, is the whole issue of facts as they are placed in the Address. One area the President has indicated in relation to energy support is primary schools where he has said we are left with around only 3,000 primary schools which do not have electricity and it is going to reach them in the next one month. I think this is not right and the President needs to be reminded that just two days before the Address, we got a letter and a list from the Ministry of Energy and more so Rural Electrification Authority (REA) programme indicating the number of schools per constituency where power has reached and where they are in progress. If you look at Bondo alone, that list excluded 40 primary schools which were erroneously misplaced or not included. Then, that list has schools that are not necessarily from Bondo and some which have been indicated as having power yet they do not. That is erroneous in terms of how the Address has it. Somebody needs to check this. We do not want a situation where somebody The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}