{"id":742989,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/742989/?format=json","text_counter":92,"type":"other","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"provisions of Article 202 of the Constitution that talk about conditional grants. This disclosure is important. The take home point for devolutionists and those who are implementing it is that those resources also should not be diverted to other functions. You should not use conditional grants for Level Five hospitals to fund or pay road contractors as many counties have been said to be doing. So, we have quite a number of resources that will be coming, in addition to the lump-sum, to counties as conditional grants. Allow me just to enumerate the ones that are there as I finish my remarks. First, we have a conditional grant of Kshs4.5 billion to be shared by counties as conditional grant to facilitate the leasing of medical equipment. The leased medical equipment scheme has been rolled out significantly. However, there are serious hiccups even as we speak. In my own County of Tharaka Nithi, for example, we have dialysis machines at Chuka General Hospital and x-Ray machines in Marimanti Hospital. However, they are not operational. What are the challenges? We do not have a technician or an expert to operate them. The county government has an unpaid electricity bill of between Kshs20,000 and Kshs30,000. The patients are still travelling to Kenyatta National Hospital for dialysis. It is a shame. This message should go to the counties. Kenyans are increasingly getting tired. We have been “baby-sitting” counties for too long. The learning period is over. We should now be talking about making counties function and serve the people of Kenya. Another conditional grant is an amount of Kshs4.2 billion to be shared by county governments for Level Five hospitals. Strictly, the eleven or so counties that have the Level Five hospitals will share that amount of money. Thirdly, there is another conditional grant of Kshs900 million to be shared to compensate county health facilities for forgone user fees. One of the commitments the Jubilee administration made was to abolish user fees in all health facilities. So, what the Ministry of Health has been doing is to reimburse counties each year for that cost which"}