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"content": "mind is in the office of the governor. Who does quality assurance before the governor appends his signature once the county assembly has passed a particular Bill? One hopes that we shall have a County Attorney as envisaged by Sen. Wako. This officer will be the legal mind that will ensure quality assurance. He will ensure that any Bill passed by the county assembly will not be at variance, but must remain congruent with the provision of national legislation and the Constitution of Kenya. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we have some cases that I can cite. For example, when we visited Turkana County, we found out that there was very little legislation going on. Nothing came from the office of the governor to the county assembly for them to act on. We also found the same situation in Nakuru County. The Attorney- General Emeritus is speaking to a really felt need. Over and above what I have said, we have got obvious cases of criminal activities. For example, in my home County of Kakamega, the Auditor-General found out several shadowy accounts were being operated by the office of the governor. The people who were operating those accounts were not public officers. If we had a county attorney in Kakamega, he would have guided the governor. Alternatively, it makes me wonder what the legal qualification is of the man who is currently advising the governor who allows such obvious criminal activities to be committed. How do you open active accounts operated on behalf of the county by people who are not officers? They are shadowy followers. That is just part of the story. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, allow me to look at a few specific issues in the clauses. I would like Sen. Wako to guide me by thinking about what is disturbing me. Given that he is a man of outstanding legal experience, he should propose the necessary amendments to make sure my appeal is also on board. Clause 4 talks about the establishment of the office of the County Attorney in each county. Clause 4(2)(c) says that the office of the County Attorney shall consist of other county legal counsels as the County Attorney may in consultation with the County Public Service consider necessary. Please, watch out. You are now opening it up for manipulation. According to me, we should limit this. If we do not, there is no way we can avoid abuse so that we have a bloated office and start crying about the wage bill the same way we are doing in the national Government which is not manageable by the county and have counties spend a lot of money that they could have put into development. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, what I am saying is not just theory. Last week, the Governor of Mandera County, appeared before our Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget to respond on issues of audit through a petition by the people of Mandera who had based their petition purely on the report of the Auditor-General. When Gov. Roba arrived, he came with his legal advisor who is a qualified lawyer. He also had a second legal advisor, County Government of Mandera, who is also a qualified lawyer. The governor also arrived with one of the most outstanding legal minds in the country, Mr. Kioko Kilukumi; who we know is not a cheap lawyer. I told the Governor of Mandera that it seems that we are giving him so much money that he can afford to hire three legal minds in triplicate on a straight forward case where he is expected to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether he spend money or not. Clause 7(c), which talks about the function of the County Attorney says that the office shall represent the county in court or in any other legal proceeding to which the 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."
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