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    "id": 797871,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/797871/?format=api",
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    "content": "because we are trying to use the limited resources we have to develop our country but the main betrayal we have is corruption. As he said, it has to be fought from many angles. He asked the Judiciary to be very objective in carrying out its duties and the Legislature in enacting necessary legislation which I think we do not lack; the problem is how we implement them. On devolution and the steps we have taken, the President has given a breakdown of how the Government has been committing resources. I join my colleagues who said that Parliament and especially the National Assembly is failing devolution in the sense that the audited accounts being used, we are told, are always very far behind the current status. That is the work of the National Assembly. They should know that they are letting down devolution by not updating the audited accounts so that we can get the 15 per cent based on the most current audited accounts. In the current Financial Year 2017/2018, we are told that counties are getting less money than we approved in the Division of Revenue Bill. I remember very well that Division of Revenue Act has Section 5 which says that in the event that the revenue is not generated to the estimated amount, then the county should not suffer, they should get their share. That is already an Act. So, when we are told by the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury that counties are getting less by Kshs20 billion, that is going against the law. As the legislature which passed that law, we need to challenge the National Treasury why they are underfunding counties, leave alone delaying the funds. They are even going against the Division of Revenue Act, 2017 by underfunding the counties. The President also talked about the measures which are taken to bring this country to almost the same level of development. Kenyans in their wisdom came up with the Equalisation Fund which is supposed to be 0.5 per cent of the budget. It is supposed to run for 20 years. First of all, marginalisation has been on for the last 50 or so years since Independence but even in some parts of this country like Northern Kenya, it was a colonial policy to lock out that part of the country. The Northern Frontier District (NFD) was a locked area. So, there is no development. We are told that 0.5 per cent will be used not only in that area but in other areas to bring us to a semblance of same level of development which I could say is ridiculous because you cannot cure 50 plus years of marginalisation with 0.5 per cent which is spread thinly. Since the onset of the new Constitution, the President reported that only Kshs2 billion has been used. Over about Kshs27 billion has already been generated. That also shows lack of the will to implement marginalisation policy. The Equalisation Fund should cure marginalisation. The other day I heard that the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) was coming up with a second policy. I was surprised that a county like Murang’a will get Kshs4 million from the Equalisation Fund. What is the intention of that kind of policy? What can Kshs4 million do? It is like they have lost direction. The CRA should look at the second policy so that it enhances what it was supposed to do; which is to reduce marginalisation instead of dividing money which is already little. In Kenya we have some kind of selective memory. When I tell you that you have marginalised me for long and you start something, you assume nothing happened before. For example, they used to take into account some factors before disbursing the 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"
}