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{
    "id": 853160,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/853160/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 315,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bomet Central, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ronald Tonui",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1242,
        "legal_name": "Ronald Kiprotich Tonui",
        "slug": "ronald-kiprotich-tonui"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me an opportunity to also contribute to this Bill. I support the Bill because it is progressive. I congratulate Hon. Njagagua for coming up with it. He is very active in the House and in the constituency. I saw him encouraging his people the other day to protect his constituency. He is facing the risk of his constituency being scrapped if they do not get the numbers. It is good that you are dealing with that and the issue of pension within Parliament. Although I support the Bill, we will need to make major adjustments to it so that it serves us well. The funds which are available in this country, to both the national Government and the county governments, come from the National Treasury Consolidated Fund. They come from the same source. They should never be discriminatory. When there is a national pension department getting funds from the National Treasury to take care of pensions for those in the national Government but there is no such provision for those in the county government, that is discriminatory. That needs to be taken care of. This is because county governments are part of the national Government and all employees serve within the same Government. Noting the fact that only 15 per cent of the national resources are devolved to county governments and 85 per cent remain in the national Government, that means that county governments have less funds available to them. They will not be able to take care of their employees. Therefore, that issue needs to be looked into so that we can see whether they can join the national pension scheme and be taken care of. This is because all the employees in the national Government and the county governments serve the same people. Therefore, there should be no discrimination. I am happy that new ideas are coming into this Bill. This Bill is very progressive because it raises new issues. It talks of termination of service benefits. We have not heard of that before. It also talks of insured death benefit, insured disability benefit, insured critical illness benefit and unemployment. Those are very important issues. I also expected a little bit more in terms of transition. The issues of former councillors can also be tackled because they are also suffering. They have really served our people. Some of them have served for more than five terms and are now languishing in the villages and cannot even take care of their medical bills. They need to be considered. They should be captured in the transitional clauses so as to receive benefits to take care of themselves. Njagagua has said that this is not a ‘money Bill’ but in my opinion, it should be. This should get funds from the National Treasury so that those issues can be taken care of. I support the Bill."
}