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{
    "id": 666388,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/666388/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 125,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "a good thing but it ceases to be a good thing when we are told that nearly 40 per cent of our people still live below the poverty line. For me, that is what devolution was meant to address. Devolution was meant to address the widening rich-poor divide so that those of us who live in abject poverty can be lifted and start to feel a sense of belonging and nationhood - that they have a right to partake in the affairs of their country. Yes, we will pass this Bill, but I want to encourage this House and the Senate. Let us build institutions, particularly let the Auditor-General and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC). Tell us why in Rarieda I can do a classroom for between Kshs500,000 and Kshs600,000 and yet the ECD classes are being constructed by the county governments cost between Kshs1.5 million to Kshs2.5 million. We really need to be told the reason. Why does it, for example, cost me less than Kshs1 million to open up a road using KeRRA funds and yet, the same road opened by the county governments cost almost ten times as much? Someone has to tell us. How can it be that the same thing being done by different people in the same area is so different? Somebody is misusing monies that should improve the lives of the people of Kenya. We cannot sit here and watch. For me, anybody who complains about misuse of funds in the counties is a friend and not an enemy of devolution as we are being classified. We have to be told why, all of a sudden, county executive committee (CEC) members are some of the wealthiest people back in the counties. Is this really what devolution was meant to do? Let us pass this Bill, but let us also demand stringent measures to ensure that every shilling of the money we take to the counties benefit the people who it is intended to benefit, and that is the people of Kenya. I thank you, Hon. Speaker. I reluctantly support."
}