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{
    "id": 750176,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/750176/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 102,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "capitalist, agriculture gets less attention is not really true. This is because if people are not fed, they will go to the streets and riot, more than anything else. Knowing the potential of our agriculture and the fact that Nakuru County, for example, needs to revive its pyrethrum industry and noting that Gov. Mbugua has done his best to try and revive that pyrethrum industry, we should appreciate such efforts and put more money in agriculture. That is just one example. Water too is a county function. Indeed, we cannot have a healthy community without fresh water, particularly drinking water. Noting that most counties are hard pressed to give their citizens fresh water for drinking, let alone enough water for irrigation, when we discuss this division of functions, first; we need to find out how division of functions in the Fourth Schedule should be funded before we allocate any money in the budget. I hope that the 12th Parliament, after our experience in the past five years, will do a much better job than we have done. If you look at health, for example, this year we had the longest strike by doctors in history. As I speak today in this August House, for the last time in my life, having been in Parliament for a good 25 years - a good quarter of a century - let me say the following: The investment in the health sector is inadequate, particularly in counties. Given the bureaucracies that are left in Afya House, we should be humble enough and cut a lot of money that goes there. We should cut away the culture of a control freak on counties and cut the umbilical cord. The Ministry should leave the counties to run the services and remain entirely with policy making, regulations and supporting certain institutions which are tied to the national Government in the health sector and, therefore, allocate more money to counties. Having said that, it behooves the county governments to be more prudent in the use of public resources and cut away the culture of ‘eating where you work.’ Indeed, this culture has eroded resources for services in the counties. In the Committee that I chair – and I am so grateful to the Members who have done a marvelous job - we have seen how certain counties perform so well, while others perform so poorly that they do not even know how to keep records and present their accounts when the Auditor-General audits them. Not only do they have a tremendous need for capacity building, but they also have a tremendous need for good governance; knowing what it is. Mr. Temporary Speaker, so I would like to appeal to those who will lead those counties, including myself, to rise up to the occasion and indeed give the passion of leadership and not the passion of acquisition for personal benefit in these counties. I am quite sure that the next Senate will do a marvelous job in keeping us accountable and, therefore, holding those of us who have been in this House responsible for putting our money where our mouth is. This is extremely important because devolution is perhaps the best thing that ever happened in this country. What we were struggling for, for so many years - those who have been in the second liberation and those who were before us as nationalists - finally bore fruit in this Constitution, 2010. I would like to give---"
}