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{
    "id": 548329,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/548329/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 309,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "CDF was created, thank God, by a Member who is now our colleague, Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki Karue. As a Member of Parliament, how do you run a constituency if you have no resources? If you go somewhere and you are told that a certain road is bad or a certain school needs to be constructed, how do you do all these things without money? There are very few people who can access the President. When the President visits Kericho before elections, he visits one place and conducts one rally and concludes that he has already covered the region. When he goes to Kisumu, he also concludes that he has covered the region. We will not be effective as Senators if we do not have resources. It is good to be honest. The Constitution is very clear. It gives us mandate under Article 96, that we are the people to oversee devolution. We cannot be effective to oversee devolution if we do not have resources. I remember I used to run a rural office in a market place where I used to pay Kshs5,000. Those were the rates of that constituency. I now have a county and the headquarters are in Kericho Town which is very big. The rents in Kericho cannot be compared to the ones charged in Sossion. You cannot compare the rates. You cannot also compare the rent in Nairobi with other areas. Supposing you are the Senator for Nairobi, you cannot go rent an office in Embakasi when you are supposed to be overseeing more than ten constituencies. This is very important. I do not mind earning the same salary as a Member of Parliament but at least, I should be given enough resources to run around. If need be, let me have offices within the six constituencies. I should have resources to employ people so that I know what is happening. When a Governor says that he has done a road of 15 kilometres and spent Kshs500 million in the road network in that county, how do we know that the money has been spent in the right way? This Bill is very timely that we all need to support it. Nobody should be worried because these are only committees. We have always worked in committees both in the National Assembly and the Senate. I call upon my colleagues to know that this Bill will empower Senators. Otherwise, come the next election, not very many people will run for the Senate seat. We will have few people going for that seat and not very strong Senators to oversee devolution. We will have very weak people and devolution may fail. We should pass this Bill, implement it and move on for the remaining time before elections to see changes in terms of development in our counties. If we leave things to remain as they are, we will be saying that we have appropriated Kshs5 billion which will not be reflecting on the ground. In the first year, we gave Kericho Kshs3.2 billion. Out of the Kshs3.2 billion, Kshs2.2 billion went into recurrent expenses; salaries and operational maintenance. You will find a Governor using Kshs800 million servicing his fleet of vehicles; you will hear an MCA saying that his office is better than that of James Orengo. Let us restore the glory of this Senate. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}