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{
    "id": 603251,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/603251/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 130,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Chanzu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 11,
        "legal_name": "Yusuf Kifuma Chanzu",
        "slug": "yusuf-chanzu"
    },
    "content": "can protect the interest of the residents in those counties. This is the reason why it is very important that we have this amendment in place. I congratulate Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Junior for doing that. Article 96 of the Constitution, which, in my view, most Senators do not seem to read, gives them the roles they are supposed to play, both in protecting the county governments and ensuring that they function. In fact, they left that role in the beginning and spent most of the time battling with the National Assembly, over supremacy. That is the reason why things went out of hand. When contributing to this debate, Hon. Wamalwa talked about reckless spending and corruption. We need to be very careful about that. We read in the Report by the Controller of Budget the other day that, there are a number of counties which have already overcommitted themselves. I will give an example of my county, Vihiga, which has a debt of over Kshs200 million. Right now contractors are running up and down looking for money they worked for which the county government is not able to pay. County governments are not business making entities. Therefore, even if they are supposed to borrow, they should borrow or spend this in advance with a lot of caution. This is because they are not going to be making profit in order to be able to pay debts. You can imagine a county government in debt of over Kshs2 billion. Vihiga County, for example, when they get about Kshs3.7 billion from the Government, all this amount goes into repayment of debt. Therefore, service delivery will be a problem. It is something that needs to be done with a lot of maturity. The assumption is that people who will be serving these counties are those that are level headed, patriotic and people who do not have their own interests before everybody else. So, the most important thing is for us to deal with corruption and payments to be done on time. The national government is supposed to guarantee the borrowing from banks. However, if they borrow huge amounts of money at the rates being offered by banks when it comes to repaying, a lot of money will go into payment of interest. There will be a crisis because no services will be delivered. So, it is important that caution is taken. It is good that the Vice-Chairman of the Committee said while moving that it is important to allow for preparedness, verification of debts and budgeting for debts. In 2003, there was the issue of pending bills which had been accumulated by the national Government. There were some people who were paid money for no work done because some of them were being done in a hurry because of the changes that were taking place. We do not want that to happen. So with the law in place, it would be possible for early preparation so that when payments are being made, they are made for correct items supplied or work done. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}