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    "id": 842997,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/842997/?format=api",
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    "content": "will transform most of our counties. I would have expected the President, even if he wanted to put in place some adjustments in our expenditure as a country, the least he would have done, is not to interfere with the allocation that was to go to our counties. We already passed the Division of Revenue Bill. I believe the implication would be that we will have to relook at it. It is even more worrying that what we read in the newspapers implies that even the allocation for the Equalisation Fund that was to go to the county governments would also be affected by the Memorandum that the President sent to the National Assembly. That is a very unfortunate occurrence. Ever since we enacted our Constitution in 2010 - we did our first elections in 2013 – we have not had disbursements of funds to the counties under the equalisation formula. This time, when most counties were looking forward to receiving this fund, it is sad that again, the President is keen on chopping off the money that was to go to the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, on the historical perspective, the Equalisation Fund was meant to serve a very critical role in terms of pushing counties that have been lagging behind to be at the same level or close to the level that other counties are at. The Equalisation Fund was meant to support counties, build their infrastructure, support some counties to have essential services accessible to the people, including water. What message are we sending, when again, we are reducing our allocation to the counties under the Equalisation Fund? The National Assembly should keenly address this. If we continue with this trend, there is no way a county like Turkana will ever be at the same level with other counties like Kiambu. The reason why the Equalisation Fund was put in the Constitution is because, historically, there are some counties that were deliberately marginalised economically in terms of development. So, if we do not assert that constitutional principle of deliberately giving money to counties that are lagging behind, they will never catch up. Secondly, we will never progress as a country, unless we are honest with ourselves. If we do not diagnose the problem that is ailing this country, we will be playing ping pong games with each other. The problem is not that this country does not have enough resources. The problem is corruption and wastage. By extension, what I am seeing of late is that we do not even want to respect our Constitution and the way the Executive should be constituted under the 2010 Constitution. The President created entities called the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) which have no room in the Constitution that the people of Kenya enacted in 2010. These are not cheap offices. They are expensive. A CAS is almost somebody above a Principal Secretary and below a Cabinet Secretary. This means that they are maybe running on three vehicles and an allocation of 10 members of staff under them. That is money that we are expending on offices which have no space under the 2010 Constitution. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is time that the President sat back and asked; when did the rain start beating him? Why we are always crying that this country has no money. Why is it that we have entered this troubled economic order when just the other day in 2013, when President Kibaki handed the baton to President Uhuru, the country was 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."
}