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{
    "id": 883815,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/883815/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 109,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Murkomen",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 440,
        "legal_name": "Onesimus Kipchumba Murkomen",
        "slug": "kipchumba-murkomen"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is one of the most important questions that must be addressed in this House. From 2013 when devolution started to be implemented by the new county governments, the Government and the people of Kenya have not had an adopted policy. Again, I go back to my time when I served on the taskforce on devolved government where we developed a huge document which was the guiding policy that informed the six Bills that were finally passed which were, The County Governments Act, The Urban Areas and Cities Act, The Inter-Governmental Relations Act, The Public Finance Management Act, which was merged with The County Governments Act. I will try to remember one more. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the point I am trying to make is that from that policy draft that we had provided, we came up with a certain legislative framework. That policy had positions on issues related on grants and loans. If you look at the draft policy, we had suggested that we should have a grants and loans council to deal with how resources will be shared, if they are borrowed, between funding county and national functions. At the moment, this House is passing so many grants to county governments. However, county government’s functions are funded by donor funding. In the counties, there is no framework for them to borrow because in sectors that are devolved in nature, there is no guiding principle on how county governments would have borrowed with the guarantorship of the national Government as provide for in the Constitution. Another policy issue is the regional integration and how counties relate amongst each other. There needs to be a clear policy framework. However, more importantly, is how national Government and county governments relate when it comes to functions such as agriculture, health and environment that, in nature, the two levels of Government have concurrent jurisdiction. Therefore, what Sen. Mwilu --- sorry, Sen. (Dr.) Zani has ---"
}