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    "id": 627978,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/627978/?format=api",
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    "content": "25,000 teachers in the next financial year. This is critical because a lot of money is being spent by Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) to build new schools. A lot of schools are coming up yet there are no teachers. The rate of attrition is also significantly higher than the number of teachers that are being provided in the replacements. I will not go into the details of that. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to go to the second part on the transfer of outstanding functions. We have recommended – Members can see that on Page IX of the Report – that all the county health functions be transferred fully; including free maternity programmes although this is a national Government policy. However, in effect, it is something that is being done and the money can be disbursed through the sharable revenue. These include free maternity programme, slum health upgrade, the cancer mitigation and control and so forth. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the programmes on crop development and productivity, agribusiness and information management, irrigation and land reclamation, fisheries developments, livestock resources management and the rest ought to have been transferred according to the Constitution. These functions should be transferred by the Ministry instead of the national Government spending a lot of resources in Nairobi on them. In the Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts, we recommend that functions such as library services ought to have been transferred as required in the Constitution, so that the Government does not spend money. We have also mentioned about regional development authorities and water service boards. We have said that the Government needs to fast-track the review of the legal framework and restructuring of the institutions, so that ultimately the amount of money, that is, Kshs3.78 billion, being proposed for the regional development should not have been provided for. The Government should fast-track that programme and devolve these functions. So, there are a number of other functions that are there in the recommendations. Members can read for themselves. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, on division of revenue, Members of our committee have recommended that conditional allocations as per Article 202 need to be kept to a minimum, in view of Article 187 on transfer of functions between levels of government. In particular, the essence of devolution is about equitable resource allocation. So, the sharable revenue should be the focus of devolution. So, conditional allocations should only address critical issues which would not be funded in any other way, like Level 5 Hospitals and the other allocations such as the Road Fuel Levy Fund, the Leasing of Medical Equipment and so forth. The second recommendation, with regard to division of revenue, is that the Committee notes that some county road functions are still held by the national Government through the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) and the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KERA). The Committee proposes that the equitable revenue share be provided to finance county roads. We know that substantial amounts of kilometres of roads were transferred when reclassification was done recently. But the amounts of funds that have been allocated or provided in the shareable revenue may not be adequate. We The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}