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{
    "id": 674863,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/674863/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Tong’i",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2611,
        "legal_name": "Richard Nyagaka Tongi",
        "slug": "richard-nyagaka-tongi"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to contribute to this good Bill. It is meant to bring or introduce uniformity in our counties and its management. As it is, we have systems and laws that are different from one county to the other, yet we have one indivisible country called Kenya. All of us must work so hard to ensure that it has standards which will be duplicated in every part of the country. In a way, these Bills try to introduce that uniformity. It will achieve a lot. However, there are challenges which we must address. The introduction of county governments has had its challenges. Most of the MCAs who won to become members of the assemblies most of them were not prepared for the challenges. All of us in the country did not know what it takes or what it entailed to have an MCA. We imagined that it was a former councillor the way we knew them. If you look at the kind of budget the MCAs are controlling, it is more or less the same as of the Member of Parliament. In some instances and projects, they have more money than an MP. The MCAs control a lot of money from road levies to the budget they have for doing roads. Because we have not put in place the good Bills to support oversight, those monies are being wasted and misused. We still think in the old way where an MP was seen to be everything else and the MCA is still seen as a councillor, the kind of money they have been in charge of notwithstanding. Therefore, it is important that we build the capacity in terms of laws, training, structures and environment because all of us are a function of the environment. We can only do so much depending on the environment under which we work. The infrastructure that we have in most counties is so rudimental that it is not possible for Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) to perform effectively as expected of them and yet these are people who control billions of money which hitherto was never part of their business. Because of that kind of money, most of them are mesmerised, confused and are doing all sorts of things. There is a lot of money and they have not been prepared enough to handle that kind of resources. This has made the governors to behave as small gods. Our governors take the advantage of the inability of oversight on the part of some of the MCAs to squander, for lack of a better word, the resources which have been entrusted to the county governments. If my county is anything to go by, the unpaid bills are so big. You wonder because the way the government works is that they budget and give contracts The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}