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{
    "id": 826737,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/826737/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Funyula, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Wilberforce Oundo",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13331,
        "legal_name": "Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo",
        "slug": "wilberforce-ojiambo-oundo-2"
    },
    "content": "Civil Service. The CPSBs need to be empowered and strengthened to ensure that they are able to recruit persons who have the requisite qualifications, and to ensure that the different shades of the society are truly reflected in the county government. The CPSBs should also ensure that as long as a public servant working in a county government delivers and is able to work according to the terms of employment, he or she should never be victimised merely because he or she is perceived to belong to a different political persuasion. Secondly, it is expected that CPSBs will rationalize employment in the county governments to ensure that we do not have a case of over-employment or a case where people are employed yet the county governments have no capacity to pay them or provide office space for them or even allocate budget to enable them discharge their duties. For example, in Busia County, Funyula has so many members of staff who purport to be employees of the county government. But since the county government was established in 2013 to date, they have no letters of appointment and they have never received salaries. They simply wake up in the morning to go and serve the public in the Department of Water and occasionally guard vocational training centres. I suggest and sincerely hope that the county assemblies will look into these matters so that those people do not unnecessarily go through untold suffering and yet, they generate revenue through collection of user charges. I must also commend the Senate for institutionalising the position of deputy county governor and deputy speaker. There has been a joke going round in social media and other forums that deputy speakers and deputy governors are generally flower girls who really have no role to play at all in the county governments. We need to strengthen them to ensure that they have a role to play. For example, deputy governors and deputy speakers should come together as a unit to mirror the position in the national Government where we have the presidency constituting of the President and the Deputy President. We, therefore, need to put measures in place to ensure that we strengthen those positions. If there are members of the society who live in perpetual fear of the unknown or the unpredictable behaviour of the MCAs, it is the speakers of the county assemblies. Focus has now shifted from threats to impeachment of governors to threats to impeach the county assembly speakers. We need to initiate measures to ensure that speakers are never voted out on frivolous claims or simply because they have either refused to approve some foreign trips or stood their ground on constitutional matters. We need to strengthen the law to ensure that the process is transparent and ensure that only good grounds provided for in the Constitution can allow MCAs to move to impeach a speaker or a deputy speaker. As I conclude, the issue of appointment of a county deputy governor, using the case of the Nairobi City County, has to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It has been several months and we have had no deputy governor in Nairobi. In the event, as we say elsewhere, the boss was knocked by a bus, we would then have a constitutional crisis that will require a lot of time and legal minds to resolve. With those few remarks, I support the Bill. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}