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{
    "id": 680017,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/680017/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 46,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "because the needs are different across the 47 counties. We passed the Act in good faith. However, we were misunderstood deliberately because some people said that we were passing the Bill so that we could supervise governors, which was not the truth. The wisdom of that Act was for us to oversight more properly the money that goes to counties for it to address the actual needs of counties and not end up in people’s pockets. My worry this morning is that reading from the County Allocation of Revenue Act Section 4 (2), the Senate passed the amendment requiring that we should pass a Motion, like today’s, so that the money can be released to the counties. This morning, we are the same people who might frustrate the need for the money to go to the counties. It is true that a lot of the money has been misused in the counties, but devolution is not failing because there is something wrong with it. Devolution can only fail because of the misuse and the amount of corruption in the counties. That is why we cannot frustrate the money going to the counties by not coming to vote for it. We should use more specifically the power and authority that we have under the Constitution to oversight and make sure that the money going to the counties is properly utilized. We have been pursuing the avenue of having an oversight fund, so that Senators can correctly oversight the funding that goes to the counties, instead of being morticians or doing postmortems. Right now we just deal with the Auditor-General’s reports. Since we were frustrated in our efforts to get funds for oversight, our work is difficult. It will be difficult for the Senate to be seen as an institution that will bring more equitable development to this nation faster. If devolution fails, a lot that we all stood for when we passed the new Constitution will be for nothing. I want to give another challenge to the Senate. We will be going to elections in exactly one year and two days from today. One of the biggest problems that we have in the counties is that many times the people that we represent keep asking what our role is as Senators. They keep asking what we have done in the last four years that will make them to elect us, going forward. This is worrying. The reason this question is asked is that after we have voted so much money to be allocated to the county governments, a lot of it is used on propaganda against Senators, because many governors fear that Senators will contest against them. In my view this is extremely myopic. What are we doing, as a Senate, to make the people that we represent appreciate our roles as Senators? If the oversight fund had been passed, we would have used it on civic education, to make the people understand exactly the different roles that we play in the set up of things under the new Constitution. Unless we try to educate our people, as individual Senators, on the different roles each of the elected leader plays under the new Constitution, it makes it difficult for us. It is true that a normal person in the county - the person popularly known as Wanjiku - knows that an elected person is a representative and they are supposed to bring development to the people they represent. They expect us to give money in form of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), bursaries, Women Enterprise Development Fund, Uwezo Fund and all the other funds, but the money is not there. We do not have that kind of fund, which is correct under the Constitution, because our role is that of oversight. We need to tell the people the truth about the different roles. It is time that the Senate, as an institution, starts an outreach system to the counties to help educate the people on the exact role of the Senator, by way of civic 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"
}