HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 592442,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/592442/?format=api",
"text_counter": 224,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "diarrhoea, dysentery, jiggers and all the diseases that come with lack of a good life. This is because you have given birth to a child and as a parent you have been negligent of that child. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, devolution can grow. The other day I said that it appears like there is a conspiracy between the national and county governments. The national Government is telling county governments: “We will perpetrate our own corruption at the top, you perpetrate your own at the counties and we shall see, hear, say and do nothing.” That is what is happening. How do you explain the national Government after hearing all the cries going on in the country, the President himself coming to address Parliament and just falling short of declaring corruption a national disaster? Immediately after he receives a standing ovation from Parliament, he starts dismantling the authority that fights corruption. How do you run a country like that? There are many other things that are going on. This House must be empowered to carry out its oversight. The stories that you hear about the levels of compromise, back peddling and all manner of things that go on are shuddering. That is why culpable officers appearing before Committees of Parliament, instead of being grilled for their wrong doing, they are asked to shed light on their wrong doing. How do you ask a criminal to shed light on his criminal acts instead of taking stern action and dealing with them? It is most disheartening. You have seen even as we are extending the olive branch and saying we want to carry everybody to reach where we are going. I do not believe that if the Senators were sitting on the Budget Committee, they would allow themselves to be allocated Kshs60 million each to do whatever they want in their areas of jurisdiction without proper audit, proper planning and without anything. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, what the Senate is trying to do is, in fact, to bring prudence, care and accountable management of resources. When you participate in budget making, then it becomes even more pertinent that you do proper oversight because it is in the process of budgeting that you know how much money you have given to your county, that you then have a duty to find out how that money you have given is being spent. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is simple logic. In all other comparable jurisdictions, the Senate is a House of reference; some jurisdictions call it the House of revision. Bills that are passed in the National Assembly must as of necessity come to the Senate for revision. You may recall when we went to the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion, the Supreme Court, in their wisdom, said they cannot envisage any legislation, including the Money Bills in this country that does not affect counties, yet we have been saying, since our inception, we have passed and sent only six Bills to the President for assent. The Government, in its lopsided wisdom or total lack of it, has decided that they have to emanate and originate all Bills from the National Assembly. After originating from there, they then choose whether to send any of them even when they obviously affect counties to the Senate or not. You have heard arguments when Water Bills are supposed to be started and ended at the National Assembly. You have heard when the Bills on security that cost some of us to go to court and fight to clear out these draconian laws. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, how can anybody in his right frame of mind think that security does not affect counties? How can anybody in his right frame of mind think that a Bill on Water or Land does not affect counties? You have heard an argument already being engineered and perpetrated, that the Community Lands Bill does not need to come to the Senate. Can you imagine a situation as outrageous as that? Community land is former Trust Land. 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."
}