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"id": 605266,
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"content": "To my mind, to protect devolution today, we need triumvirate relationship between the Senators, governors and the Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs). I urge my colleagues to invest time, energy and effort in developing relationships with our governors and county assemblies because those are the institutions that are under threat. When you are told that devolution is under threat, it is not the air that is under threat; it is you, Senators, Governors, MCAs and the county governments. That is what is actually under threat. If we devolve that, then devolution is finished. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when people say jokingly, because nobody can seriously contemplate dissolving or doing away with the Senate, it is a bad joke. When you think about dissolving them, it is exactly the same way that it would be a bad joke for us to think that we can dissolve the National Assembly. It is not unimaginable but is not a good joke. However, somebody can propose a bad joke that let us dissolve the National Assembly because after all, it is the so expensive and therefore, let us have only 67 people representing Kenya and let a constituency be equivalent to a county. Guess how much we are going to save as a nation if we only have 67 legislators for the entire country. That can happen, but it is not the way to think or go. When we hear that money to oversight the money allocated in this entire Budget has been taken away, it is the same way as those who bite their noses to spite their faces. You think that you are saving something or being smart, while as a matter of fact, you are looking dumber by the day. This is because if you take that money away, it means that those who are willing to engage in corruption will have a free day because there is nobody oversighting this money. In fact, had somebody told me that we are not going to get the Kshs1 billion, and that the National Assembly is going to allocate that amount to use in the National Assembly to oversight the county governments, I would have probably said that it is not their responsibility, but it is better than the way we are doing it now. This is because at the very least, there would still be a factor of oversighting this huge quantity of money that has been given to the counties. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I think that the relationship between the two Houses; the National Assembly and the Senate, has got to be at a much more mature level. We sat with Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale and Sen. Elachi face to face with the Members of the National Assembly and I dare to say that we learnt two things; one, is that there are some very bad people in the National Assembly but we also learnt that there are some very good people in there. This is because without those good people, we would not even have mediated successfully. Whichever way you look at it, we mediated successfully. This is because the money that we were looking for the counties went to them. It is good for us to repeat this because this is a House of record. Even if it meant that we give up our salaries to travel around the counties, forget about the oversight money, so that devolution works, I personally would be quite happy and willing to do so. If that is the sacrifice that has got to be made so that Kenya’s children can live better tomorrow, so be it. History will judge those who think that they can play around. I think that some people have read the Bible so much that it has become a book. It no longer provides any spiritual nourishment. It is a book that they read to quote nice words from. If they are really the sort of people that others pretend to be, more religious and completely spiritual, 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."
}