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"content": "I know as a matter of fact that Article 184 of the Constitution was enacted to control the habit that the Government, at that time, had formed of creation of urban centres and cities, as some kind of gift or reward to the community, which did not bring any benefit to the community. Article 184 requires that legislation be made to control the establishment of these cities and urban areas, and the manner in which they are to be classified. Before any place can be classified as an urban area or a city, the provisions of the Constitution and the Urban Areas and Cities Act should be complied with. Mr. Speaker, Sir, looking at the Urban Areas and Cities Act, I am not sure whether Maralal Town qualifies. The starting point is what the distinguished Senator for Samburu has said; that the county government should be able to provide public participation in anything that they do and decisions they make. The complaint of the petitioners is that there was no public participation. So, the first necessity and important consideration, which is in the Chapter that states that devolution is important because it brings governance to the grassroots, seems not to have been complied with. Mr. Speaker, Sir, for purposes of reminding ourselves of what the Act and the Schedule requires for any area to have in order to qualify for a municipal status, one would want to look at Section 9 of the Urban Areas and Cities Act. The first important consideration is the population. The Act itself says that the governor can actually declare a place to be a municipality, notwithstanding the provisions that relate to population. However, all the other considerations are mandatory. Reading through them, I am not sure whether Maralal qualifies. Saying that a town does not qualify to be a city or an urban area is not negative; it is to ensure that in order to reach there, there are certain essential facilities which should be there. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I will look at five of them, which are important, for purposes of qualifying an area to become a municipality. One of them is Paragraph (c) of Subsection 3, which says that a town must have a demonstrable revenue collection or revenue collection potential. Many of the urban areas that are created all over the country are not run on the basis of their potential for revenue collection or that they can collect sufficient revenue in order to manage their affairs. In fact, everybody seems to be waiting for what comes from the national Government, which then trickles down to some of these markets and cities. The other important one is that it should have infrastructural facilities, which include but not limited to street lighting. I do not know whether there is street lighting in Maralal Town because it is quite some time since I went there. The municipality should also have markets and fire stations. Also, it should have a capacity for functional and effective waste disposal. If cities like Nairobi or Kisumu or Mombasa or all our cities, do not have the capacity for functional and effective waste disposal, I wonder whether Maralal Town could be having that infrastructure and facility. So, without going throughall these conditionalities which are also contained in the First Schedule, the Senate needs to look at it and see whether this urban area qualifies to be a municipality. It would be helping the people in Maralal Town to ensure that they are not loaded with financial burden that they cannot bear. I remember in the old days, many urban areas in the former Central Province resisted classification as municipalities because of fear of paying rates, whereas in some areas in the country, people are very 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."
}