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{
    "id": 594155,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/594155/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 320,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 170,
        "legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
        "slug": "bonny-khalwale"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill. I want to thank you for giving me this chance and, more importantly, thank Sen. Wako, Attorney-General Emeritus in this House and my brother at home. I want to agree with the mover and the seconder that this legislation is long overdue. I say this because for the three years that we have looked at the accounts and reports of the Auditor-General, there are glaring instances where, if an Attorney for the county had been in office, the mistakes, omissions and commissions that we have observed and which have been reported by the Auditor-General would not have arisen. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, sometimes when you look at what is going on in the counties, you cannot help but conclude that there is serious wastage, excessive and sometimes abuse of public funds. Stories abound that already, the Council of Governors (CoG) has, in fact created a kitty for themselves so that when they are challenged as individuals or collectively, they go into this kitty to hire some of the most expensive legal minds in this country. You witnessed in the case that the governors had in court when they were resisting coming before our Committee of the County Public Investments and Accounts. They were using some of the best brains in the country and these brains are not cheap. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have got cases where governors, because of lack of legislation, have resorted to legal services from friends, relatives and cronies, purely for purposes of creating a job through which these people of theirs can earn some easy money. There are cases in the country where this has happened. For instance, there is a case in Kakamega County where money was paid to a law firm which was supposed to look into a boundary dispute between Kakamega and Nandi counties. We all live in this country and know that there have never been boundary disputes between the said two counties. If anything, we had elements of public unrest in an area in Kakamega called Khuvasali where an individual went and killed a member of a family on the Nandi side. That family, in the traditional way that Nandis respond, demonstrated their anger by moving towards the Luhya side and torching houses. If that had happened on the other side, the converse would have been the same. That provoked a governor who went ahead and hired a legal firm to look into a boundary dispute where there is none. Luhyas live very happily in Mosop same to Nandis on the Luhya side. We have never fought over boundary disputes. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you look at the officers that these people have hired, you wonder how suitable they are. Some of the legislations that have failed to come from the governor’s office so as to create various pieces of legislation within the county assembly or those that have come from the county assembly leave a lot to be desired. When you look at the quality of the pieces of legislation, you wonder what legal 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."
}