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{
    "id": 705668,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/705668/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 151,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Akujah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2138,
        "legal_name": "Protus Ewesit Akujah",
        "slug": "protus-ewesit-akujah"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Before I reply, I have a few comments to make based on this Bill. I have listened to the Members who have contributed and supported this Bill and I want to thank them for their contribution and their support. I have heard Members raising some issues that are not in tandem with the Bill. We hope we will incorporate the issues in the next stage. The way in which county assemblies have operated in the past without this law has been an avenue for corruption. In absence of this law, I do not know how county assemblies have been operating. You might have heard from other Members that it has taken almost four years without this law. I do not know how they have been operating. There has been a gap in the county assemblies. The MCAs, in the past or even currently, because this law has not been there, have used the gaps in the existing law to siphon funds from the speakers and the clerks. There was nothing which was guiding that. I know there is the County Assembly Board in which the majority and the minority leaders, the clerk and speaker are members. These are the leaders of county assemblies. I do not know exactly how they oversee these funds yet they are the people who authorise the appropriation of the same funds. There has been a big problem. This law sets out procedures on appointment to the board as well as circumstances that may lead to removal of office bearers. That guides the operations in county assemblies which will streamline what has been going on. The clerk will also be competitively recruited and approved by the county assembly, his procedural functions set as well as his removal or suspension. In some county assemblies, the MCAs have resorted to the old version of the former county councils where the office of the clerk was locked in the morning as a way of removing him. When the clerk comes, he fails to access his office. He is harassed and in the process, he has to cough out something in order to access his office. With this law in place, such kind of behaviour will not be condoned in county assemblies. With these remarks, I beg to reply."
}