Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 650687,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/650687/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 244,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "governor’s office through restricted tendering. It also spent Kshs16 million to set up ablutions and a sentry wall. My understanding of an ablution block is a place where we go to relieve ourselves. I am yet to see an ablution block that could be valued at Kshs16 million. On alterations and extension of the governor’s office, Kshs19 million was spent. Remember another Kshs4.3 million had already been used on the governor’s office through restricted tendering. To partition the education hall, Kshs1.3 million was used. To make matters worse, to renovate the governor’s residence, the county government spent Kshs11.6 million. A governor’s residence in that part of the country at Kshs11.7 million is enough to build a new house from scratch. Here, we were picking houses that were formally used by the District Commissioner (DC), putting a few renovations here and there and spending Kshs11.6 million. To make matters worse, the deputy governor’s house cost Kshs10.275 million. These are not my words, but those of the Auditor-General in his report. At the time of the audit, neither the governor nor his deputy had used any of those houses. What kind of mockery is this? What kind of wastage or pilfering is this? This is not manslaughter, but murder because this looks like a pattern where people sat down and came up with a plan to take away money from taxpayers. Unfortunately, CPAIC has focused on the aspects of tendering that the crime there is the use of restricted tendering. Yet, it is so obvious that the total of Kshs72 million of those projects that I have talked about seems to be a plan to use money through whatever means necessary. Let me bring to the attention of the House an amount of money, I think it is about Kshs61.5 million, which the Transition Authority (TA) gave to county governments as start up fund to enable them set up infrastructure and renovate offices, residences and etcetera . We need to know whether that Kshs61.5 million has been audited. Whenever we raised issues on these projects that I am talking about, we were told that these projects were funded by the Kshs61.5 million that came from TA. Therefore, an audit of TA’s proceeds would be undertaken by the National Assembly and not the Senate. That is something that we need to be very clear about. Even when the county government officials came, they said that they had to spend the money quickly and in the manner that they did because it had come from TA. If they did not spend it, it would go back. We cannot have a situation where people rush to spend money simply because it would go back to the exchequer. The money must be spent on the right thing. The fourth example is that this report talks about improvements to Sero Youth Polytechnic. If you look at the Auditor-General’s report that precedes the report of CPAIC, something very interesting comes up. On 21st November, 2013 with respect to Sero Youth Polytechnic, the county government issued a Local Purchase Order (LPO) of Kshs2.49 million. On the same day, an invoice was raised and then payment was made still on the same day. I have never seen that kind of efficiency. Not even in the private sector where an LPO, invoice and payment is done on the same day. That was the finding by the Auditor-General. The CPAIC did not even interrogate that peculiarity. If Homa Bay County was this efficient, then we would not be having this problem of pending bills. It means we 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"
}