Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 781570,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/781570/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 87,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Nuh",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2840,
        "legal_name": "Junet Sheikh Nuh",
        "slug": "junet-sheikh-nuh"
    },
    "content": "there is a lot of focus on Nairobi because Kenyans believe money is not in the counties, but still in Nairobi. The Senate must come out clearly to address that matter because that is their function, unless they are doing other works. We used to say that, that is the House of old men. I have seen new young men who have come there. They can take over those jobs. Hon. Kang'ata is there. He left us here, a place with young people. I do not know what he is doing there. Hon. Speaker, county governments nowadays rely only on funds transferred from the Exchequer. They are not collecting funds from the counties. I used to be a mayor and people used to collect a lot of funds from markets and everywhere, unless they are misusing those funds. There is no proper mechanism for accounting for the internal revenues county governments generate. Nobody is looking after that money. That is the money that is misused so much on the ground. It is not little money. It is a lot of money. Secondly, county governments are supposed to develop county development plans. Five years is a long time. There is something they call the County Integrated Plan and County Development Plan. They do not integrate all these things when they do their budgets. Their budget committees just sit in hotels. Members of the County Executive Committees (CECs) appear before the MCAs and tell them that they want to do a certain cattle dip or a dispensary somewhere. By now, they should be able to operate effectively. Five years is enough time for a county government to mature and operate the way the National Treasury is operating in terms of budgeting and preparing financial estimates. For how long will they be building capacity? They have done bonding. They have gone to all the countries that you can mention in the world to bond and see how financial estimates and budgets are done, but still their financial estimates are not properly done as required by the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and other laws. Hon. Speaker, devolution is the most important thing for our country. If devolution is strengthened, all the wars of resources we are seeing in the country will end because everybody will be getting money in their counties. The only problem that we can talk about that might be giving them issues is the issue of late disbursement of funds by the National Treasury. Also, the National Treasury takes a lot of time to disburse resources to the counties. They send money very late. They do not give county governments money on time. By the time the money is disbursed to the counties, a lot of debts would have accrued. All the issues we are raising should be addressed by the Senate. Why is the Senate there if they cannot make sure that county governments get their money on time? The Senate is supposed to make sure that county government functions properly. The Constitution says that the Senate is there to protect the counties and nothing else. If the Senate cannot protect the counties, it should be dissolved. What else are they doing? Lastly, I want to address myself on Jubilee’s Big Four agenda. Some of the issues that we want to achieve through the Big Four agenda are devolved functions. For examples, the health, water and agriculture sectors are devolved. There must be a mechanism and collaboration between the county governments and the national Government because the intention of the Big Four agenda is to make our country better, healthier, food-secure and turn it into a developed nation. That is what the President wants to achieve. Yesterday, you heard the Leader of the Minority Party say that we are going to support the Big Four agenda as the ODM. The Big Four agenda is supposed to be pursued at the county level. County governments must play their roles in making sure that the Big Four agenda is achieved as this is what is going to change the lives of Kenyans. In conclusion, this Bill is timely. It came immediately we passed the Report on the BPS. It has been done very fast, but I pray and hope, just as the Leader of the Majority Party said, that The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}