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{
    "id": 683469,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/683469/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 169,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "tell you who the President’s economic advisors in this country are. How do you ensure that Government projects are implemented in a coordinated manner when no one knows who advises the President on health matters? No one knows who advises the President on serious economic issues. We are now waiting for the President to sign the Bill we passed last week on interest rates. No one knows who advises the President on monetary matters. Under the coalition Government, we knew there was something called the National Economic and Social Council (NESC). We knew the experts working in there. Right now, you cannot tell who advises the President on issues of devolution. It is difficult to understand how the President and his Government hope to implement the projects that he is setting up without proper advisory and proper Government structures. Pending before this House is a question I asked about the Ministry of Public Service and Youth Affairs. I asked about the relationship between the Cabinet Secretaries and the Head of Public Service. There is a very big anomaly in this country. We have an office created by the Constitution called the Office of the Secretary to the Cabinet. It used to be held by a gentleman called Mr. Kimemia. Since he left, we have not had a substantive Secretary to the Cabinet for more than one year. Who is coordinating Cabinet work? How do we expect to have Government projects well coordinated when we do not have a person that the Constitution requires to do so employed? Since we rejected Madam Juma, we have not had another name brought before this House for approval. The Office of the Auditor-General is very important. We recently saw that for that Office to work well, it must be well-resourced, kept independent and has to be allowed to work independently. This Parliament, in my opinion, will go down as one Parliament that tried in a very big way to emasculate the position and the Office of the Auditor-General. It has not done well. There was a Bill that was prepared by the Treasury without the Auditor-General being consulted. We hope that it can still work and do its job right. We must learn to strengthen institutions. This afternoon, we just approved a two-day extension to the life of a Committee that was not necessary. We need to work and respect our institutions. If there are Committees in this Parliament that can work, we will allow them to work. If we have institutions of Government, be it the offices of the Controller of Budget, Auditor-General, Attorney-General or the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), we must endeavour to strengthen them. The reason we set up commissions under the new Constitution is so that they share power with the Executive. For a long time, we have tried to weaken them, emasculate them and not allow them to work the way they should. This Parliament should work hard towards ensuring that the independent offices, including that of the Auditor-General, are strengthened, well-funded and well-resourced to enable them to give us good reports. At the end of the day, our job of oversight can only be made better by good, well-researched and well-resourced reports by the Auditor-General. Going forward, if you look at what we have been given under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, we are being told that head-teachers in high schools and primary schools declare numbers that they do not have because of capitation. They say that they have 500 children and yet they have 250. Monies are going towards that direction and yet, we cannot easily afford to keep our children in high school. All these Members will tell you that we spend so much of the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NGCDF) money on bursaries. Why can we not make free secondary education truly free? Avoid the pilferage we have seen in this report. Avoid the thievery and corruption that goes on in that Ministry and"
}