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"id": 768611,
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"content": "The counties have to reconsider implementing strategies to enhance revenue collection. As Sen. Cheruiyot said, some municipalities were raising over 60 per cent of the revenue before. But now that they are in charge of all the money, they cannot even sustain themselves. I do not even know where this money is taken. Somehow, the local revenues are not collected. In my county, for example, the revenue officer pockets the money that is collected. The same person has different receipts for collecting revenue. How can you arrest such a person who has double receipts? Some of the receipts are not serialised. I do not know whether they resemble the case of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), where some of the forms are not serialised and others have serial numbers. The people in those areas are illiterate and, therefore, do not know which is which. They are just being given receipts which are illegal. As a result, you will find a very junior officer driving a very big car or building houses here and there. Obviously, the county leadership, just as the former county councils, are aware but somehow, they do not want to do anything about it. Until such issues are corrected and proper internal mechanisms are put in place, we will not be able to solve some of these issues. For us Senators, we are told we have an oversight role, but we have nothing to facilitate this oversight role. Those of us who come from very far do not even have mileage allowance. How can we oversight? You cannot manage to go to the counties without that money. You are expected to go to Wajir Country, which is 56,000 Km2, for example. How do you go and oversight what happens in that county when you cannot even travel? Parliament must be empowered to make sure that Members are able to implement what they have been elected to do. However, if as parliamentarians, we cannot even go and fight for our rights as individuals and as Members and we just want to agree to whatever we are told, then it is unfortunate. Counties and the national Government will do what they want. Members of Parliament will remain paupers from now on, whether people want it or not. You cannot do anything. I can give an example of the smallest constituency in Wajir County which is 7,000 Km2. Others are 26,000 Km2, and you are expected to go round and do those things and there are no resources for that. So, the Senate, wake up and make sure that you are able to implement these things. You have to function for us to survive. The issue of non-disclosure of those revenues from the counties, unless you have young people who are able to help you on the ground, for you to have people to go round, then you need to really have facilitation. You cannot perform some of these things. If you cannot do anything yourself, how do you expect the communities to help you? The way Kenya is nowadays; if you are not able to grease people’s hands to go and help you work, then nobody will do for you anything. As an individual, what can you do? So, I believe the Senate can only perform if we have funds to do those activities. Without that, unfortunately, we will just have to sit around and make noise. I said earlier that inexperience and lack of knowledge is also one of the issues why we have failures by various county departments to submit expenditure returns in accordance with the provisions of Section 168 of the Public Finance Management Act, The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}