Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 548302,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/548302/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 282,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "During the recess, if I make an attempt to go round the county to see how my people are doing, I have to buy new tyres for the car. If that is the status of things, you can imagine what would happen. This was overlooked by PSC. Three weeks ago, I was visited by a Senator from South Dakota, in the United States of America (USA) and he was very surprised to see how Senators are here. He expected me to have a fully functional office that has researchers, lawyers, engineers and so on. It is a pity. Madam Temporary Speaker, for devolution to succeed and for us to enjoy the fruits of devolution, it is essential that we empower the Senator. We hope that the Committee that is going to be formed under PSC, that is, The Senate Services Committee, will handle most of the things that we are lacking. A lot of resources have already gone to the counties; in my county, we got almost Kshs3 billion but I cannot tell you how that money has been spent because I have not been able to go round to check. The following year, we got almost Kshs3.5 billion and this year it is moving to almost Kshs4.7 billion. Money is just flying around and we can only see new buildings coming up. Devolution is not an individual agenda and it is supposed to be all inclusive of the leadership of that county; even if the execution part of it remains with the county government, the decision-making is supposed to be done by all the leaders. You will find that some counties have a very strange number of people; 150 drivers against 30 vehicles. Then you ask yourself which one comes first? Do you need a car or a driver? If you have somebody there, it means that he or she will have to be paid. What does he drive? No wonder we get some of those vehicles being driven 24 hours because somebody has to exercise his or her skills every day and the drivers keep changing themselves. Madam Temporary Speaker, I do not know whether my colleagues have noted that we have new buildings that have come up, including some called “planning office” in wards or sub-counties. Planning what? I thought the planning office – Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o who was the Minister for Planning and National Development can tell you – is supposed to be centralized in one place particularly where the governor sits. As a result of this, we end up losing a lot of money, things being done because the person who is doing oversight is not fully enabled. There is an erroneous thought that we found people practicing in the counties where they are saying that the Senator is not supposed to oversight county money. That county money they are talking about is in two forms; the money we send from here which is the national bit and the second part of it is the one they collect, which is locally generated funds. That type of approach is the one some governors and some local leaders in the counties are using to block Senators from oversighting and querying how funds are being utilized. To me, it is the key thing that brought us here. Other than sitting and saying: “This amount is approved to go to Kisumu and this to West Pokot”, it should be what the money is supposed to do – the key things that are supposed to be done. You may find that some of the functions that were devolved in Schedule Four have now come to the level where the money is being used to build primary schools or many other things which are not devolved."
}