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"content": "and this House. Therefore, let us allocate the money, but also ensure that the money that was allocated by the National Assembly to this House – the Kshs1 billion – to increase our oversight is not tampered with for any reason and by anybody. I think that should be made very clear. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, as a House, we also need to ensure that we continue to support and speak to our county assemblies, so that we can emphasise the need for them to be more vigilant in managing the resources, oversighting and serious participation in the budget process of our counties. I think it is important for us to appreciate the three items that we touched on. First, there is the issue of emergencies. This was after a very serious consultation and discussion. Right now, we have emergencies in places that are flooding. For example, when there is flooding in Budalangi, we must empower the county government to respond instantly and immediately. County governments are more accountable to the county citizens when there is an emergency and no response is taken. The second dimension is that the county governments will have no excuse why people should be suffering on the ground, when they have got some money that can immediately be deployed to resolve those problems. When it comes to Level Five hospitals, I think it is important for the Senators to appreciate that the costing that was done by the Treasury was over Kshs10 billion. The amount of money that was originally given in the National Assembly was then split amongst the 47 counties, which made nonsense of the whole idea of conditional allocation for Level 5 hospitals because, essentially, what that means is that some of money for Kisumu Hospital, for example, went to the neighbouring county, which then brought their people for treatment in Kisumu, Nyeri, Kakamega, Kisii and so on. But we are alive to this and it is important for us to point out a factor in it. If you look at page 6 of the Bill, you will find that within the national Government allocation figures, there is a figure for Level 5 hospitals of Kshs2 billion. If you go down and look at county allocation, there is another figure of Kshs2 billion. This means in effect that the actual allocation is Kshs4 billion. It is important for us to point out this even as we discuss it, because last year when we negotiated – and we were involved in the dispute resolution with Sen. Elachi and Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. – we agreed that we would split the cost that was demanded then; Kshs3.6 billion. So, in real terms we are saying that we want some Kshs3.6 billion conditional allocation by the national Government directly into the counties. However, it also implies that there will be another Kshs3.6 billion from the national Government allocation; the matching fund that we have operated on since we negotiated the Kshs1.8 billion. I think we need to understand that and this message should be very clear to the Treasury, so that they do not say that we are asking for Kshs3.6 billion in total. Their matching fund is still required at the same level as the allocation for the county governments. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other thing to remember is that we passed a Bill in this House that 40 per cent of the amounts to be spent in the counties are going to be used for development. It can be a Bill or Act in futility if we do not have sufficient funds to allow for the 40 per cent. There is no need of telling a county like Nyeri, which is in deficit, that you are going to allow 40 per cent for development, when they do not even 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."
}