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{
    "id": 591379,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/591379/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 102,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "concerning county governments and which is in the arena of arbitrating conflicts between the national Government and county governments.” The highlight here for Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo was that the Supreme Court identified correctly that in order to safeguard devolution, the Senate needed to have strong powers. In the same advisory opinion, the Supreme Court observed that although it appears that the drafters of this Constitution gave little legislative powers to the Senate, the intention, that is why in paragraph 102 they said, although matters concerning security, public finance and other things that are not in the Fourth Schedule, any good Speaker would find that those matters concern counties. Other than leave those issues to conjecture and interpretation, that is the purpose under which we have proposed an amendment to Article 110 so that we do not leave to the Speaker of the Senate and the National Assembly to determine whether a matter of security concerns Garissa County or not. That is the purpose why I was reading this. The discretion that is given to the Speaker of the National Assembly has been removed in the proposed amendments. The discretion on Bills has been removed. The discretion on budgets where one House is considering matters concerning the livelihoods of Kenyans in Garissa and Makueni counties will now be a function the Senate will conduct. It is important because if this Senate is considering the matters of public finance and debt, some of the issues affecting this Republic today would not happen. The public debt has got an impact directly on the funds that are going to our counties because it is considered first before dividing the revenue. Although we will have a lot of work scrutinizing with a tooth comb the budget of Ministries, in the end, the complaints that you hear from the Senator of Nyandarua County about facilities in his county would never arise because we would find where the money is, hence, the proposal to deal with Money Bills. Although the veto has been left to the National Assembly, the fact of the matter is that the document will not be brought to us as a matter of course. It will not be brought to us for the sake of it because we will have the opportunity to look at it. On Article 203, Division of Revenue, on matters of devolution, the Committee agreed unanimously that we need to increase that formula to 40 per cent of the most recent revenue. The questions about Article 204 - I speak to the counties that have been given the Equalization Fund - that sort of cushioning in this Article will not arise if we raise revenue as proposed in our Draft. Madam Temporary Speaker, 12 chapters only and 53 clauses of the Constitution, we found reason why the President cannot declare a state of emergency in one county, say, in Lamu without involving the Senate. We found reason why the deployment of our military to any place should be a matter that should concern the Senate. Any Bill that needs to be discussed must come here for quality control because that is happening everywhere in the world. The Senate in Australia and in India, composed of eminent persons is supposed to offer quality control in their Bills. The debate about whether or not the Bills that are in the National Assembly purporting to grant us more resources in our retirement would come here because although they do not concern counties, we, the Senators, as a House of Parliament, are also receiving the flak for not doing anything about it yet we have no role in dealing with these matters. 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."
}