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{
    "id": 722265,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/722265/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 248,
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    "content": "Kericho County where I know small scale farmers are contemplating uprooting tea bushes because it is no longer economically viable to run that business. What is the response from the county government and what are we doing about it? In the next few years, if we do not promote policies that promote viable agriculture to the small scale holders, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and going back to the problems that that we ran away from. I do not know what it is that we would fall back on this time because we have already moved away from the central system of government. I would also like to point out that one of the policies that we need to consider is the fiscal capacity and efficiency of county governments as an agenda item. As we continue to push and devolve more funds to the counties, what is it that we are doing as a legislative House to question and say Kshs290billion or more that we are sending to the counties, how prudently is it being used? We know very well that upon the setup of county governments, only 20 per cent of government employees were sent to our counties yet up to date, in terms of recurrent expenditure, salaries continue to gobble up almost 60 per cent of the funds that we are sending to counties because of the same problems that I spoke about earlier where people want to gain quick gains. Because we have an election coming up, one wants to go to the village and ask for all the unemployed youth. They end up taking 600 youths without realizing that there are no resources to pay them. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, if we get to a point where we realise that we are running our counties with about 60 per cent for salaries and other recurrent expenditures, then 40 per cent will be left for development purposes. That way, we can say that we are doing a good job. However, as long as we continue to send monies to counties to pay salaries, I dare say that we are walking the wrong path. That is a path that we have already taken and it will be a grave mistake if we continue. The agenda item under Article 203 is the need for affirmative action in respect of the disadvantaged areas and groups while we continue to talk about equalization. Some of us represent very unique counties. Everybody imagines that Kericho is a green and beautiful place that receives rains throughout the year. That is true but there are certain quarters that we happen to share with you, that can easily pass for marginalized areas yet up to date, four years down the line, my county assembly has never seen the need to pass an Equalization Bill in the county assembly so that the parts of the country that are heavily marginalized can catch up with certain regions. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you talk about youth empowerment because they are also a marginalized group, one of the most difficult sets of groups to do business with are county governments. So many businesses have closed shop. Those were businesses that were being run by disadvantaged groups of youth, women and people with disabilities because they supply county governments yet they are known to be the worst payers and people to do business with. Banks no longer finance Local Purchase Orders (LPOs) from county governments. Is that good fiscal management from our county governments and what can we do about it? We were given a statement here that shocked everyone. We are told that county governments pour billions of shillings yet a good reading of the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act will tell you that--- 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"
}