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{
    "id": 799025,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799025/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 250,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for this opportunity to support this Bill. I would like to start by congratulating my Chairman, Sen. (Eng.) Mahamud. This is a Committee that I belong to and he has been steering this Committee efficiently and pretty well. As a general observation, now that the country is talking about the possibility of relooking at the Constitution, 2010, it will be desirable for the country to look at sharing of revenue on the basis of budget and not audited accounts. This is a budget cycle and what we are giving out to the counties and retaining at the centre is about the current budget. It is not about a historical figure. Therefore, it will be good if in future, we relook at the Constitution and say that what is sharable is what is in the budget. The current budget that is being worked on is likely to be in excess of Kshs2.4 trillion. What we are dealing with is still under a trillion. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, if we revisit the Constitution, it will be absolutely important and necessary that the Senate be at the centre of the budgeting process. The Senate is reduced to dealing with a small percentage of money that is going to the counties, while the bulk of the money is being handled in the National Assembly. You know the ping-pong that we have been having about even a small item like oversight fund that the Senate is looking for to ensure that money is used more efficiently in the counties. The current division that we are seeing is as a result of the historical background of devolution. It is quite clear that devolution is a dream-come-true for many Kenyans. It has its problems and hiccups but, today, if we asked Kenyans to vote for the most innovative political idea since Independence, they will tell you that it is devolution. We must make it work because from the last election and previous elections after the new Constitution came into place, we have progressively seen that what is supposed to be equitable is in fact far from it. Next year, this country will have a national census. You and I know that there are certain regions of the country and some counties where population census figures were falsified and inflated to the extent where some counties were---"
}