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{
    "id": 797828,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/797828/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Auditor-General has submitted reports of 2015/2016 and we should divide revenue based on the latest audited accounts. If you do not say so, you will be letting Kenyans down. We must tell the President that we are disappointed in some of the things happening in this country. True devolution means true fiscal devolution. It cannot be under Article 187 that we can devolve functions without following resources. Sen. Halake talked about15 per cent. What is 15 per cent and where did that figure come from? That is arbitrary or a wish. The important thing for me so say is to follow what we did as this Senate. We have passed a unanimous bipartisan resolution in our draft Bill proposing that the counties should get 40 per cent. My fellow Senators, it is said that Kshs1.5 trillion shillings has been sent to counties. Most of you know that 80 per cent of that money has been paying wages. Are you happy with that status? Please, do not answer me. It is not right. We are devolving the payment of salaries, we should have more development. We should upscale this to 50 per cent. It is not happening. Therefore, the scorecard is that we have done well but we can do better. This State of the Nation Address is a report and not a manifesto. What do you say about the report? You cannot be happy about something like that, I am not. I will prefer that we get more resources and we must say so. In doing so, we are not telling the President that he has done something wrong, we are rather telling him to put his foot down, his only legacy. In fact, the legacy of President Uhuru Kenyatta will not be the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). He mentions here that the legacy that he can leave this country to exorcise the ghosts of 1963 of marginalization is to ensure complete fiscal devolution, according to Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who called them the three C’s and one of them is Complete fiscal Devolution. In terms of services, I am happy because the idea of devolution is to have services outside your doorstep. Recently, the people of Makueni had to sleep in Wote because of birth certificates. That is an embarrassment. In fact, my Chairman, Sen. Cherargei, asked that question and when it was answered, somebody skimmed through it. If you are a citizen by birth, the minute you are born, you should get your document. The same way if you attain the age of 18 years, you are given an identity card (ID). If under Article 53 of the Constitution, we take pride in saying that we protect our children and an ID is issued for free, why are parents paying for birth certificates? If you never paid for your ID, why are your constituents paying for birth certificates? I laud the idea of Huduma Mashinani but I would like Huduma Mashinani to be the Huduma Mashinani that makes sense. We are asking Mama Mutheu in Makueni to pay Kshs100 to access services. This is a lot of money. The queuing and sleeping in the District Commissioners offices is even worse. For a chief or any mandarini n the provincial administration to write a letter for you, you have to pay for it. People are being harassed and for this, I laud the President. Huduma Mashinani, National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) must be made a reality. On the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the status of the nation is that the GDP has grown. If you mention this in Kondele, they will laugh at you because there is nothing that has grown in their pockets by 4.9 per cent. I would like to see a situation where some of these Addresses by the President speak to mwananchi in an ordinary way. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}