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{
    "id": 800730,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/800730/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 290,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "I am glad that this amendment seeks to increase the share that is allocated to county governments from Kshs372 billion to Kshs376.4 billion. So, we are seeing an additional Kshs3.739 billion going to county governments. If we were the people who celebrate little successes, then the Senate would have celebrated that we are giving counties more. However, it is our duty, as the Senate, to look out for the interest of counties and make sure that they have got more resources to carry out the functions that have been assigned to them in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution. I am looking at the Schedule that we are amending on the Bill. There are 12 conditional grants. The Division of Revenue Act that we passed had nine conditional grants. We have now increased them to 12. I agree with the Mover of this Bill that we are having too many conditional grants. Indeed, the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) has raised this matter. Every other time we are going into discussions on division of revenue, the Government is using conditional grants or conditional allocations in a manner that seeks to fly in the face of the intention of devolution as captured in the Constitution. There are some conditional grants that have become permanent, for example, the Managed Equipment Scheme. I believe that the Managed Equipment Scheme is one area that, the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee which I Chair, has had a conversation with the Auditor-General on. Madam Temporary, Speaker, we need to carry out a performance audit of the investments that have been poured into the health sector since the advent of devolution. Before we pour additional resources in the name of universal healthcare, I want to assure the Senator for Makueni County that this is an area where we can have a discussion as you enrich the scope of that special audit that we want the Auditor-General to undertake. There are other permanent conditional grants like the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund. We have let counties down because we are still holding on to the Roads Bill. In the last Parliament, we tried to negotiate an increased allocation to counties because we had made a determination as a Senate that the national Government will deal with Classes “A,” “B,” “C” and “D”, roads and county governments will take up the rest of the roads. That meant that the amount of money that would go for maintenance of roads in counties ought to have increased in tandem with the number of kilometres that county governments have to maintain. We also need to see the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund, which has become a permanent conditional grant, increasing. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Mover has talked about inadequate mechanisms for oversight on conditional grants. For those who were in this Senate in its very first term, you will remember that when we were establishing the county governments, the Transition Authority (TA) allocated an amount of money to help each county to establish structures in the first few months of devolution. Each county got several hundreds of million shillings. It became very difficult for the Senate to ask questions about that allocation from the TA. Most of this money was used to construct and refurbish houses for governors and their deputies and to refurbish offices for governors and speakers. However, to date, that money has not been audited or there was no oversight on it because whenever we ask questions we are told that money came from the Transition Authority which is an agency 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."
}