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{
    "id": 719926,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/719926/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ogalo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2679,
        "legal_name": "George Oner Ogalo",
        "slug": "george-oner-ogalo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. This is a constitutional Bill that this House is required to process every financial year. I thank the Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, who moved it in the House this afternoon. The figures are very clear. Many Members have raised concerns on the various figures. With the time I have, I would like to note the conditional grants provision of Kshs9.6 billion for health care, considering that the county equitable share also has money for health care. This House needs to look for a more proactive way of funding health care in this country. During the recess, I was in my constituency and I found staff of a health centre in my locality striking for not having been paid for six months. Electricity in that facility had been disconnected and there was reverse referral from the health centre to a dispensary. I took time to speak to the committee members of that health facility. It is very sad that the Government insists that health care will be free in public facilities and then fail to follow through that policy with remittances of financial resources to those facilities. I found that at that facility, money had not been remitted since April last year and yet this is a facility that serves very many people. In my opinion, we can use the Division of Revenue Bill, when it becomes an Act, to safeguard the money meant for health facilities. The money can be sent directly from the National Treasury to the dispensaries and health. We all go to dispensaries and sub county hospitals. That way, those facilities will be financed and they will offer the services that the Government claims are supposed to be free in those facilities. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, devolution has taken services closer to the people; at the grassroots level. The Early Childhood Education and Development Centres (ECDCs), for example, are closer to the little children in residential neighbourhoods as opposed to primary schools, which are located in central places. If you look at health, it was brought to be looked at by county Governments because---"
}