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{
    "id": 768665,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768665/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 150,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Seneta",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 611,
        "legal_name": "Mary Yiane Senata",
        "slug": "mary-yiane-senata"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker for giving me a chance to also contribute to the Annual report by the Controller of Budget on County Government Budget Implementation Review for the Financial Year 2016/2017. Having said so, I will now point out a few issues that I have observed. This is a very insightful and enlightening Report. We needed more time to go through it, so that as we speak to the citizens of this country, we do so with informed minds on what is going on in our counties. In the Report, in most of the counties, there is a low absorption rate. This is possibly due to ineffective county treasury staff. This should be noted when there is recruitment of the staff because we need to have a workforce or a human resource that can do their reports and request for money at the right time. There is also very high recurrent expenditure compared to development expenditure. That means we are not putting a lot of money into development of our counties. As Kenyans, when we were fighting for this new Constitution, we were looking at devolution as a solution to our problems. We thought that once monies are channeled to our particular counties we would prioritize our expenditure. However, according to this Report little money is going to development. That means that we spend a lot of money paying salaries and allowances at the expense development. Madam Temporary Speaker, there is also the issue of county assembly trips. The amount spent on personal emoluments is very high. Therefore, we need to get advice from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in collaboration with the public service boards. They should advise our counties on salaries to be paid and the labour laws, where people are paid according to their grades. I also believe that some of the county governments are engaging in projects that do not help the citizens. So, we also need to look at the issue of public participation, so that priorities can be set when considering projects. There are also many pending Bills as my other colleagues have said. This could be due to procurement procedures that are not being followed or giving out contracts without looking the budgetary allocation. Now The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}