{"id":584377,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/584377/?format=json","text_counter":385,"type":"other","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"responsibility is to enact legislations to help in the smooth running of our counties within this country. This has brought a very serious challenge to the National County Printer. Every other time you go to our counties, one of the greatest challenges they continue to raise with regard to the passage of Bills and the legislative processes in the counties is the delay in the publication of Bills. This is understandable because we have only one Printer in this Government. Sometimes when you have a Bill that is forwarded to the Government Printer, it takes two or three months before it is published. We have to appreciate that whereas we may want to push some of the national institutions to ensure that there is efficiency in the way they run their affairs, we must be alive to the fact that the establishment of 47 new legislative bodies in this country, to be served by the same Printer in the country, is untenable. Therefore, we want to appreciate that whereas we may want to continue pushing the Government Printer to ensure that they are effective and efficient in the way they run their affairs, it is practically impossible that they can achieve that, looking at the workload. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, in the County Assembly of Nandi, for example, we have several Bills pending before the Government Printer for publication. This is replicated in the other 46 county assemblies. Therefore, we cannot expect our county assemblies to move forward in ensuring the necessary legislations are passed in the counties. Stories in the newspapers are told of some of the county governments who because of the very strict timelines in the budget making process, ended up printing some of their budgets in some of the commercial printers in River Road. Whereas this is illegal you can sometimes understand the frustrations that the county governments are going through in waiting for the Government Printer to print their Bills and publish their budgets and other documents, yet they have strict timelines that they should meet. Therefore, the Bill that we are proposing today seeks to partly address that particular challenge. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if you look at the Constitution, it clearly indicates that a law cannot be effective, unless it is printed within the Kenya Gazette . Therefore, that clearly says that, that has to be the Kenya Gazette as published by the national Government. However, there are several publications in the counties that may not necessarily need to be published in the Kenya Gazette . That is why we are providing for the establishment of The County Printer to ensure that even appointments in the counties and publication of Bills or proposed budgets for purposes of distribution to the residents of the counties can be done by the office of the county printer once it is established within the counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker I must appreciate that in the Committee on Constitutional Review, headed by yourself and deputized by Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr., in some of those proposed amendments in the Constitution, you have included this particular component because this is an appreciation that there has to be a review in the way our county assemblies are running their legislative mandate. This will ensure that we do not have bottlenecks being created and roadblocks being established between the county assemblies and their legislative responsibilities of ensuring that they have legislations in place. 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."}