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"content": "Former Trust Land was owned and managed by county councils. The successor entitled county councils is the county government. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, how can you at any level of thinking, however, lopsided think that community land does not affect counties? There are many examples I can give. That is why; to avoid the ping pong that we have been seeing, to avoid the pushing and pulling, the shoving and so on, we, as Senate, have the humility to say that it does not matter where the Bill originates, but all Bills originating from the National Assembly must come to the Senate. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, already there is a provision that all Bills originating from the Senate must go to the National Assembly. So, we want reverse osmosis that creates equity and civility, good order and respect for the two Houses. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I also want to support the proposition that the vetting of constitutional office holders be the function of this House. You may recall the vetting of some of the officers of Government where the vetting authority rises in the evening to say that a candidate is unsuitable and rises in the morning to claim that he candidate is suitable. I do not think such a thing can happen in this Chamber. The vetting of judges and other constitutional office holders will be best done in this Chamber. If you have seen the kind of vetting that goes on in the USA; it is a full trial. People employ professionals to dig into the lives of nominees to establish whether they merit sitting in the positions they occupy. That is why it is appalling to see a vetting panel asking a nominee with a notoriously stinking public record, to shed light on allegations against him or her instead of confronting them with facts, events, dates and places. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I support that 40 per cent of annual budget be allocated to counties. This is an area that I have spoken about often. When the national Government rolls out a budget of Kshs2.1trillion, one would want to support that 40 per cent goes to the county governments. In fact, if I had the leeway, I would want it shared 50-50 or 52-48 per cent for the counties as is the case in Nigeria where the state governments which are devolved units get 52 per cent of the national budget while 48 per cent is left to the national Government to run matters of defence, foreign relations and internal security. I would also like to see a situation where the Senate participates in the budget making process more aggressively and empowered in oversight. The things that are going on in most of the counties today according to the report of the Auditor-General and county assembly, there is a lot of uncomfortable happenings out there. This House should never be left to get into a status of a mortician. We should not be going out there to carry out postmortems of misappropriation of funds that are two or three years old. It must be contemporaneous in what is now commonly referred to as budget tracking. This House must be capacitated to do that. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I also support that signing and approval of international treaties should be a function of this House. When the Government signs or accedes to a treaty, it must be placed before the Senate for evaluation and adoption as the Constitution provides that treaties entered by our country must, as of necessity, be part of our laws. That then means that before the Government puts its hand on any international treaty, it should not be vice versa, to sign the treaty which automatically become part of our law under the Constitution then bring it to the Houses of Parliament to be looked at. Drafts of those treaties should be brought way in advance so that the level of comfort, sanctions and approval by Parliament is given as a stamp of authority before the Executive goes to sign the treaty. Once the treaty is signed, they quite easily find themselves in a fait accompli that we do not know whether to say it is right or wrong 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."
}