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{
    "id": 886269,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/886269/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 395,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "governor and projects superintended over by the county commissioner, who is currently chairing a county development structure. The county commissioner reports to the committee that is led by the Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Fred Matiang’i. The projects that the national Government is undertaking in counties are of much greater value than the monies that the counties are getting. If there is a Kshs64 billion project in Elgeyo- Marakwet, it would be under the purview of the county commissioner. He will be the one to oversee and monitor it and the governor will be left with a Kshs3 billion budget to look after. There is need to bring all these people on board and put them in one place. In my opinion, a Bill and legislation which will do much more than what we are looking at right now will be a county leaders’ forum that brings everyone together. With that, we will have all the Members of the National Assembly, Senate, county assembly, Executive and the county commissioner sit in one room and agree on the priorities before we embark on the budget making process. In fact, there is another layer of implementation which is the Regional Development Authorities. They have projects in the counties and they do not care what the governor wants and what the priorities of the people are. We need to look at our counties and ask ourselves; between the economic and political goals, which one do we want to put ahead? Politically, we have said that it makes sense to take power to the lowest level but for economic purposes, especially the budgets and projects; we must find a way of consolidation. Right now, we have forty seven of everything. If it is bad manners, theft or nepotism, we have them forty seven times. Can we look at our counties and find a way of ensuring that we shed off some of the fat that puts us into the eternal trap of 70 per cent on recurrent expenditure. The Mover has proposed that the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) shall advise when distributing these monies though we must also consider the revenue generating capacity of the wards. It is unfair for the traders in Gikomba to be taxed every day just for that money to be used in putting up streetlights in Lavington. Where revenue is collected, there has to be some return on investment to the people and that is the only way of motivating them to continue paying taxes. In as much as we are saying that development should go to the ward, the Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) should not forget their primary duty which is oversight. Most of the things this Senate has been doing are supposed to be done at the county assembly. What my Committee has been dealing with; the audit reports, is supposed to be handled at the county assembly level. It is for that reason that we said that we now want to take a different look. We came to that decision when we retreated last week. We said that we will bring a fiduciary risk assessment to this House and not individual county reports. That will help us assess the key risks that we have come across over the last six years of devolution, their impact, the ways of mitigating them and the policy on legislative proposals that we can put before this House. That will be a better way rather than bringing the names of procurement tender committee members or accountants who misplaced receipts and receipt books to this House. That kind of conversation should be happening at the county assembly level. We will be bring an omnibus report of the Committee on County Public Accounts and Investments to this House which covers the first three years of devolution through the fiduciary risk report. For the subsequent years, we have made a resolution that we are sending out invites to governors to respond to Auditor-General’s reports for the 2017/2018 financial year. Article"
}