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"content": "there is little public participation. At times you would have very few people participating in it, and then all of sudden, we see roads and buildings coming up. In other cases, very huge projects are started. As I speak right now, in a certain county there is a huge project that is coming up, which is already a source of conflict. Instead of bringing blessings to that particular county, we already have the residents complaining and imagining that maybe the leadership wants to take that project to their own area. This has come as a result of lack of public participation. I am sure that if the public was involved, they would have embraced the project and known why it is being put up in that area. Many of my colleagues have even mentioned the issue of garbage collection. In the county where I come from, we had a tug of war in terms of garbage collection. Residents have complained about garbage being dumped in their sub-county. Again, that was as a result of lack of public participation. We have problems in terms of public expenditure because, in most cases, we have projects coming up just from decision that have been made in boardrooms, hotels and sometimes through trips. After a short while, most of the finances are spent in inappropriate projects. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you do a close analysis, you will find that there are areas where we have projects like buses, schools and factories of various nature coming up, and yet they are not the priorities of the particular residents. As I said earlier, this has been a bone of contention. Normally, the residents conduct various demonstrations because of lack of information. Clause 6 is clear in terms of giving guidelines. I am pleased to note that, once this Bill is in place, before any project commences in future, there will be display of what will be taking place for a period of three months. That is enough for the participants to have an understanding of what will take place. Otherwise, in most cases, we start projects without informing the actual beneficiaries of their targets, the cost of the projects, the procurement procedure and the beneficiaries of the projects. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, at this particular point, I wish to thank the Makueni County Government for what they are doing. While we were in Mombasa during the Legislative Summit, the Governor for Makueni explained to us at length what he has done in terms of putting in place a very clear structure that includes even the village elders; it is right from the county government to the village level. That structure was able to tone down what was happening in Makueni County in the past. Maybe out of that formation, it was why Makueni County Government was almost being dissolved earlier on. However, right now, you will realise that Makueni County Government is what we are going to emulate and it is my prayer that many of our governors will visit Makueni County to borrow a leaf in terms of participation. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, looking at this Bill, it is very short, however, once it is through, our cry of wanting to know what the governors are doing as a Senate will come to an end. I am sure we shall also be very clear as to what is happening in our counties. As one of my colleagues had already put it, when we go to our counties, we are not even sure of what is going on there. We normally just appeal that they send money to the counties. However, we are blind when we go to those counties. If somebody stops us 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."
}