Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 805110,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/805110/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 175,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "“All County Legal Counsel in any department in the county executive shall be officers of the Office and shall be answerable to the County Attorney.” This gives strength to the thought that the county attorney’s office and his or her directorate shall have officers under him or her who shall be serving the various departments of the county government. Therefore, it is expected that a particular department of a county government will not say that they have run into difficulty or headwinds with the law because they did not have sound legal advice. This should bring down the costs. The county governments are losing money because of the nature of some of the decisions that County Executive Committee (CEC) Members continue to make. Counties are sued and forced to pay. An example is where a CEC in charge of roads goes ahead to construct roads in areas that they should not. They ignore court orders and counties are forced to pay a lot of money. Sometimes, one wonders whether it is intentional or a collusion to destroy someone’s property so that they are paid a higher amount and share the loot. This is Kenya and nothing is impossible. Some of these things are choreographed. However, this will be cured with the coming into effect of a directorate. These officers need to know that they are acting on behalf of residents of a particular county. Therefore, there should not be acts of negligence. I believe that they will be serving under an oath that I have seen at the end of this Bill. They will uphold their call of office and give sound legal advice. Therefore, it will bring down legal costs and other costs in the counties. Part III of the Bill is on the performance of functions of the County Attorney. Clause 16 says that before each department makes a decision and finalizes on the programmes and agenda they have for a particular county, they must seek approval in writing from the Office of the County Attorney. This speaks to the same point that I have spoken before and, therefore, there is no need to repeat it. Clause 16 (3) states that:- “An approval by the County Attorney of a request by a department or public entity to engage the services of a consultant under subsection (1) shall be made in writing.” Maybe, we need to add the words “and justified,” because we do not want to leave it open that for every particular request that is made, it is granted by the Attorney. There must be a justification that the reason the office of the County Attorney cannot be used in this office is because of A, B, C and D. That has happened."
}