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{
    "id": 618737,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/618737/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "a.m. to clear the backlog. I hope the House will understand the difficulties under which the committee has operated and credit it with the excessive hours we have been sitting to clear the backlog. Secondly, the audit queries have been massive due to substantial mis-governance in the counties. Part of this is as a result of naivety on the part of governors and executive members on exactly what they should do to follow the law. Part of it is in ignorance of the law, particularly the County Governments Act and the Urban Areas and Cities Act, which apparently in a county like Kisumu, the county government did not really understand its responsibility. It is our responsibility as Senators to point these things out. When we point them out, governors should not think that we are undermining them. We are doing our role according to Article 96 of the Constitution. In fact, they should compliment us for bringing out these issue so that there can be good governance in counties. We are not raising these for ourselves. We are doing it for the public and for the good of the Republic and for upholding and defending the Constitution. Another issue I noticed concerns problems of transition. At the moment, there is a debate going on whether the term of the TA should be extended or not. There are pros and cons for doing this. I hope that when Sen. Wako brings his Bills to the floor of the House, we shall be enlightened on what we need to do to make sure that we make a decision as a Senate which is for the good of the country and in defence of devolution. I want to speak about the Auditor-General. Today, we had a forum at Ufungamano House on the Eurobond. The forum went on very well and I was the moderator of the forum. The former Prime Minister was there and he did put across, along with others who spoke there, a very clear elucidation on the Eurobond issue. The Auditor-General has a tremendous responsibility to guide the nation on what happened to the Eurobond. This is a moment in history that we must wake up to. The indebtedness of this country as a result of enormous foreign borrowing will not only affect the effectiveness with which counties finance their projects, but also, we, as Kenyan citizens, in terms of the amount of money we shall have to take from our pockets to pay for taxation in order that our foreign loans can be serviced or paid. Therefore, this thing has a direct bearing on the lives of Kenyans. Rather than use that tax for development, we are going to use it for paying loans. When we ask genuine questions as to which projects were financed by the Eurobond, very few answers are coming out of the Jubilee Government. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, instead, we were asked by journalists whether we are aware that the Auditor-General is under siege and may actually be removed from office by the Jubilee Government because of some cooked up reasons. This House must rise up to the occasion. As we have said, the Auditor-General’s institution is already substantially undermined by amendments to the Act establishing and running that office, which were not warranted at all. The undermining of constitutional commissions and offices by the Government is something that this House, as a House of senior legislators and patriots, must look at very carefully. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}