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{
    "id": 857962,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/857962/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 496,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": "The Supreme Court, in our advisory reference, told us that they cannot envisage any Bill that does not concern counties. Whether it is a budgetary matter, defence or agriculture, they are all about counties. Whatever you can think of, the theatre of operation of every issue in this country is in the counties. In fact, there is no Bill – whether or not it is a money Bill – that does not concern counties. This is because when we collect taxes, we collect them in the counties. When we expend taxes, we expend them in counties. That is why this Bill is very critical. Madam Temporary Speaker, hon. Aden Duale and his group edited the Senate out of treaty making and amended the law to now read that no treaty shall become or enjoy a force of law without ratification by the National Assembly. That language is not in our Constitution. By passing this Bill here, we are simply rolling back and restoring the Constitutional position that the Constitution gave authority to this House. This is because Parliament is not Parliament without both Houses; the Senate and the National Assembly. As a matter of fact, the Senate is the ―upper‖ House; the House of revision and reference, where Bills from the National Assembly ought to come to this House. Madam Temporary Speaker, all of us travel to comparable jurisdictions. When you go to Australia, England or wherever, people out there laugh when they hear that a National Assembly has veto powers over Bills from the Senate. They also laugh when they hear that Bills go to the National Assembly and never end up in the Senate. There is nothing in this country that does not concern counties. In fact, I have been arguing – and I will continue arguing – that we must relook at our Constitution, even on revenue sharing. As we correct these imbalances and the erratic changes in the law, revenue sharing must be changed. This is where Amos Wako and his team went wrong. We cannot share revenue on account of historical figures based on audits, knowing that Parliament either deliberately or because of incapacity, is unable to keep abreast with audits. Right now, we, as the Senate, are bringing audit reports of the Financial Year 2013/2014 to this Floor. We are what Sen. Wako called us; morticians who carry out post-mortems on dead bodies, instead of helping the living to live. We must stop this because if we do not do it, we will continue to cheat counties. For example, we have a budget of Kshs3 trillion and are sharing out to counties Kshs970 billion, and we say that this is the revenue available for sharing. In Nigeria, revenue sharing is based on every The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}