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{
    "id": 768596,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768596/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 81,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Haji",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 26,
        "legal_name": "Yusuf Mohammed Haji",
        "slug": "yusuf-haji"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I congratulate the presenter of the Motion for her eloquence and for the good manner in which she presented. The audit report is revealing a lot of problems with our counties. But, unfortunately, there was no way in which we could correct these problems because of lack of the necessary staff to support the Senators. Mr. Speaker, Sir, upon reading the report, there is a trend whereby the revenue collection in 2015/2016 was exceptionally good in many counties, but as they went on, in 2016/2017, there was a very serious decline in revenue collection. This is an indication that the Governors who were in charge of the counties, particularly if I speak about, for example, Garissa County, were not up to the task of ensuring that their counties were run in a proper manner. With regard to this short fall in revenue collection, the question is raised as to where that money has gone to, because it is a lot of money. If this money was collected properly and utilized, I am sure things could have been quite different from what we see now. Most of the counties depend on the national equitable revenue allocation instead of concentrating on collection of revenue from their own resources. We hear most of the time that people are lamenting that the Government has not released money, yet they are sitting on money which is within their reach if they were going to collect their revenue in the counties. Mr. Speaker, Sir, looking at this report, there is also a huge vote for personal emoluments, which appears across the board. If you look at all the counties, you find a lot of money set aside for personal emoluments as opposed to development. Were it set aside for development, people would have seen it and appreciated devolution more, which we were craving for, for many years. This is brought about because, for instance, in my own area, there was no development plan that was being followed on priority terms. Most of the time, money spent on projects was agitated by kickbacks that one can get from that huge amount allocated for the projects that were given. This trend could be corrected if we do away with local auditors – and I repeat; local auditors – and, instead, the central Government should attach auditors to monitor The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}