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{
    "id": 701371,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/701371/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 213,
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    "content": "You will find that many counties are rushing and they want to be given national Government functions that do not fall under their mandate. These include issues like funding of primary or secondary schools which is not a function that is transferred. However, many counties are arguing to be given that responsibility while ignoring important functions like library services. So, in our observation, this is a question of implementation. We have recommended that the county should go ahead and build community libraries that are going to be useful and used by the community and the people of the county to access knowledge. So, we noted in many instances that these are matters related to county governments. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you come to roads, there are many counties that talked about it. As you are aware, in our first transfer of functions, we noted that class A, B, C should be a national function; classes D and E and unclassified roads be county functions. This is a concurrent function. This was something that was dear to the late Sen. Gerald Otieno Kajwang who was then the Senator for Homa Bay County. I remember debating how we can deal with this Roads Bill. We ended up saying in the first transfer functions that we needed a legal framework that will make proper classification. The Roads Bill is under consideration by a Committee of this House chaired by Sen. Chiaba – I cannot notice any of the Members here – but it is an important Bill capturing the concurrence function. It says this function be transferred to the necessary institutions. This report is very critical in clarifying what is a concurrent and what is an exclusive function of a county vis-a-vis the exclusive function of the National Government. It also advises the counties on what they need to do or which law they need to consult when it comes to matters of transfer of functions based on the legislation that we passed here after debating them with a lot of commitment. I thank our Committee for a job well done. This is a report that we should not stay with it for too long. Being a Member of the Rules and the Business Committee, we thought we should prioritize it today so that we have a Division tomorrow and conclude it. That will transfer these functions. The counties can, therefore, continue putting structures and institutions in place for implementation of the functions that are being transferred to them in the last part of this year before the elections. It is good to remind ourselves that there are things that are not transferred to the counties. Corruption, the big man syndrome and dictatorship have not been transferred to the counties in this report. Service is what has been transferred. It will be implemented by servants and not lords. We expect the leadership at the county level to focus on being servants of the people. Previously, a lot of focus has been on the big man. People have focused on things such as, who will speak first or who will speak last.There have also been debates on what people own and what they did instead of the service that has been rendered to the people. Devolution is a chain. There are many players in that chain. I have attended meetings where people think that Senators are like flower girls or page boys in the devolution process. Sen. Wako and Sen. Orengo will tell you that the counties would not be getting money if we did not fight for the role of the Senate in 2013 in so far as transfer of money is concerned. I say this because when you attend meetings in our counties, you 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"
}