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{
    "id": 554840,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/554840/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 176,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Kanyua",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 981,
        "legal_name": "Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua",
        "slug": "priscilla-nyokabi-kanyua"
    },
    "content": "On days like today, the House has to take the lesser evil. The lesser evil is to agree with what the Mediation Committee has arrived at. In future, we hope that the Senate will use its time wisely and bring their recommendations early before the IBEC figure is agreed upon. I agree with the Leader of the Majority Party that the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget is similar to the National Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee. The Chairperson should sit in the IBEC discussions so that the views of the Senate are taken in early. As we proceed on this debate, the National Assembly has a big duty. Henceforth, it should create a fall-back position in our laws. There are various options that the Committee has discussed and deliberated on. One is the 50 per cent clause. In the year when the Division of Revenue Bill is not passed, as it almost happened this year, there needs to be a 50 per cent clause that allows the drawing of money up to 50 per cent between the county government and the national Government as the country waits to pass the Division of Revenue Bill. The other proposal that has come forward is the reversionary clause. In the year where the Division of Revenue Bill suffers, like this particular year, there needs to be a reversionary clause that the country would go back to the previous Division of Revenue Act. In this case, this year, the country would have gone back to the 2014/2015 Division of Revenue Act that had a figure of Kshs236 billion. If we did not agree on the Kshs287 billion, we need to have a fall-back position on last year’s figure of Kshs236 billion. At the very worst is to allow a carry-over clause in our laws similar to what landlords and tenants have. If a tenancy agreement runs out and there is no tenancy agreement continuing, the tenant pays the last rent he or she had paid while under the tenancy agreement. That fall-back position is something that I hope the Budget and Appropriations Committee will lead the entire House in coming up with. The country cannot continue to exist without a fall-back position on the matter of the Division of Revenue Bill. We have seen the risk that in a bad year, the Division of Revenue Bill may even be lost. If that should happen, and God forbid, we want to have a fall-back position in our laws that guides the country on what can be done. Either go with the 50 per cent clause, the reversionary clause, the carry-over clause or have the Division of Revenue Act that is existing remain in force until it is repealed. Like everybody else on the matter of Level Five Hospitals, we are asking our governors to make sure that this money goes to those hospitals. Even as we ask the governors to put the money in hospitals, right from when we pass this Motion, the funds should directly go to the hospitals and the Chief Executive Officers in those hospitals be made to administer the Level Five Hospitals’ funding. In the case of the Nyeri Provincial General Hospital, as we used to call it before, we see cases where despite our concerted efforts to increase the funding to the Level Five Hospitals, our patients continue to share beds and suffer in the hospitals. The answer can only be that the funding for Level Five Hospitals is given directly to the hospitals and the county governments are only left to oversee or to undertake policy measures that guide the provision of healthcare. The funding from the national Government, as a conditional grant, should go directly to the hospitals so that they can realise improved services as the National Assembly is doing in passing the money. 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."
}