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    "id": 800732,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/800732/?format=api",
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    "content": "of the national Government and, therefore, it is beyond the scope of the Senate. That money was misused and abused to a great degree across the counties. When we were in Kakamega County, the Vice Chairperson of the Council of Governors, Gov. Waiguru, indicated that the Council of Governors and the National Treasury were coming up with regulations on conditional grants. Indeed, when we went for Legislative Summit in Mombasa County, the Deputy President talked about certain regulations on legislation on conditional grants. In fact, he reported that the matter is already in Parliament. I do not think that matter has come before Parliament. When I consulted with the Chairperson of the Committee on Finance and Budget, he indicated that we have not received anything from the Executive to legislate on conditional grants. We need to come up with proper regulations to help us get a good overview and oversight on conditional grants in this Republic. We do not need to wait for the National Treasury for we have been given the power as the Senate to legislate. If the National Treasury, the Council of County Governors (COG) and the other levels of Government are going to be slow on this, then the Senate should take the lead to ensure that we have got some credential guidelines on conditional grants. Whenever the Auditor-General looks at the accounts of the counties, much focus is always on equitable share and not conditional grants. As such, even the Senate’s Committee on County Public Accounts and Investments (CPAIC), in its oversight role, on behalf of this House, has not effectively looked at how conditional grants have been applied and whether proper returns have been made. In the last County Allocation of Revenue Bill, which has now become an Act, there was an expansion in the appendices, the last pages, where some of the conditional grants came with specific condition on utilization and accounting. We need to come up with one framework that will guide the Auditor-General. I have always felt that Article 187 of the Constitution gives the national and county governments a lot of room to negotiate and agree on issues. Article 187 talks about agreements between county governments and the national Government. Conditional grants seem to be one way through which the national Government is passing on some of its functions to county governments but the Constitution is clear in Article 187 that even when you transfer the function, responsibility still remains with the level of government to which it was assigned in the Fourth Schedule. Instead of having 12 conditional grants and five or six other conditional grants that we have been asking for--- I have been a firm believer in the Commission on Revenue Allocation’s (CRA) proposal every year that the national Government should provide a conditional grant for establishment of cancer treatment centers. That was captured in the last Division of Revenue Bill in the recommendations of CRA and it has been captured for almost three years. I do not understand why we, as the Senate or collectively as Parliament, would look down upon CRA’s recommendation that we set up regional cancer treatment centers when cancer is such a big menace. This is the kind of country where you wake up with Kshs60 million in your account. That is all that glitters in this country, yet we object to the establishment of regional cancer treatment centers. That is being insensitive to a great 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."
}