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{
    "id": 799057,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799057/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 282,
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    "content": "What we know in practice is that there are overly long delays in releasing these resources to the counties. Consequently, particularly towards the end of the financial year, there are unprecedented delays to an extent that counties are unable to absorb what it is that has been allocated to them. What happens is that counties suffer in their own programmes and MCAs are unable to talk to the constituents who elected them to office. Secondly, on the conditional grants, it is very painful that whereas the hospital equipment was leased at a Kshs4.5 billion what we are being presented with here is Kshs9.4 billion. I am a professional in that area but I would like to ask a very simple question: Are these the type of equipment that are appreciating or depreciating? Are there any additional costs that have been sneaked into this programme so that it inflates the figures that are going to the county governments? The conclusion is that this issue has been raised but I would like to bring it up again. We do not know what our public debt is. I believe that this forms part of our public debt. The first charge on any resources is towards the public debt. We are being told that there is so much money going to the counties but at another level, we are taking this money back through the public debt redemption. It is important that we are very clear on this. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the question of Level 5 hospitals, I have visited some of them and there is a lot to be desired because the money is supposed to be reaching there but there are very few medical staff being employed in these hospitals to give quality care and that is the basis upon which the Level 5 hospitals were set up. The equipment notwithstanding, even the specialised groups to handle this equipment have not been put in place. Therefore, the equipment is lying idle. Nothing is happening as far as I am concerned. On the issue of polytechnics, if you notice, one of the major policy shifts with the Ministry of Education was 100 per cent transition. From when I was the Minster for Education, I left it at about 80 per cent. The sudden transitional rate is not commensurate because the agreement being used at this stage is that these polytechnics are the ones that are going to absorb those who obtained Grade D and below. However, we are not pumping the conditional grants to bolster and bring up the levels of polytechnics so that they are in a position to offer this service. I can tell you for free that as a minister for technical training and applied technology, one of the monument progresses we made was to upgrade the scales and that is why most of our people were able to send some of the investors to industrial area away from the Tom Mboya, Kirinyaga and Biashara Streets. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, therefore, I suggest that in future, when we are doing this budget allocation, this is an area which has got potential growth of absorbing our young people, the huge bunch that we have here. We need to be able to use this level if it is going to be used as criteria for absorbing those who have not been able to make it to higher institutions of learning. The resources at the county level must be availed to cater for these services. There is also the question of the user fee and I need not say much about it. However, the weather has done havoc on our roads. I do not know at what stage the national and the county governments are going to sit together and rationalize the resource flow to the county level. The Fuel Levy was meant to be able to relieve these elements of hardship at the county level to make passable roads. A county like Kisii is small but densely populated. Therefore, we need to get the agricultural produce from 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"
}