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{
    "id": 842935,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/842935/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 177,
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    "content": "county that I have seen the governor keen to have this done is Kisumu County. I do not know what his motivation is, but at least he has been able to provide for that. There was some thinking and wisdom when the Urban and Cities Act created the position of city managers. In this City, the person who is thinking about the roads in Kayole cannot be the same person trying to sort out roads in Westlands and Lavington. You need to go a step down into four boroughs; Nairobi North, Nairobi East, Nairobi South, Nairobi West and have leadership on that level. Let people be served on the things they need where they need them, because that is the real essence of devolution. Not everybody has to come to City Hall. If you have an issue in Nairobi South, for example, you should go to Lang’ata. If you have an issue in Nairobi East, be served in Kayole or Embakasi. Through that, we will be able to bring devolution closer to the people and serve them much better. If you look, for instance, at the Second Schedule of this Cash Disbursement Schedule, on conditional allocation from the national Government, there are conditional grants that are very important. There is Kshs4.33 billion to Level Five hospitals. There is also compensation for user fees of Kshs900 million that is to be disbursed monthly; supplement for construction of country headquarters; conditional allocation on road maintenance fuel levy of Kshs8 billion and youth polytechnics of Kshs2 billion. I remember we had a discussion as the Senate - and at that time I think it was Senators from one side only - with the President, that this conditional allocations from the national Government need to get direct oversight from the Senate. Whatever happened to that discussion, I think your guess is as good as mine. It is the Senate that is supposed to monitor and play a closer role in oversighting the conditional grants coming from the national Government to county governments, because the county executives are able to keep this away from the MCAs. So, we do not have oversight at the county level and the national level, because that is not the focus of the Auditor General. So, this oversight is being done by the National Assembly instead of the Senate and the county assemblies. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, on top of that, I would like to urge that we continue to support the war against graft because that is the only way we can restructure our country, develop and ensure that the fruits of the great gift called devolution go straight to the people of this country. I am glad that with the Estimates that have come to the National Assembly, there has been a reallocation and increase of the money going to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Judiciary. That is one part that I agree with. On top of that, I feel that there other areas that we could have rationalized our Budget. For instance, I am not convinced that in this day and age, we need to be struggling so much to fund a Kshs2.6 trillion budget. Because of the 16 per cent Value Adde Tax (VAT) that will only give us Kshs35 billion, the common mwananchi is feeling it as an individual, yet if we reduce every Ministry’s budget by between 2 and 5 per cent we would save about Kshs175 billion. If we decide to go the way our neighbours have by having no VAT on fuel but having your VAT rate at 18 because the protocol allows it to move from 16 per cent to 18 per cent, you spread the pain wide but you inject another Kshs75 billion into the economy. We need to be honest with ourselves in some of these discussions. We should 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."
}