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{
    "id": 886313,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/886313/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 439,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Eng.) Mahamud",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 373,
        "legal_name": "Mohammed Maalim Mahamud",
        "slug": "mohammed-mahamud"
    },
    "content": "The Second Schedule of the Senate Standing Orders mandates the Committee to investigate, inquire and report on all matters relating to coordination, control and monitoring of the county budgets. Pursuant to Article 216(2) of the Constitution, at a meeting held on 27th June, 2018, the Commission on Revenue Allocation drew the attention of the Committee to the issue of on-going county governments’ infrastructure projects which included construction of county executive headquarter offices, county assembly chambers and offices and county state officers residences projects. The construction of county state officers’ residences projects included county governors’ residences, deputy governors’ residences and county assembly speakers’ residences. Noteworthy, there were counties which were receiving conditional grants on ‘supplement for construction of county headquarters’ where the projected cost of construction had almost doubled. The Senate will recall that for almost three years or four, this Senate has been passing funding under County Allocation of Revenue Act for construction of county headquarters for five counties namely; Nyandarua, Tharaka Nithi, Isiolo, Tana River and Lamu. The project has not started in most of those counties apart from Tharaka Nithi and Nyandarua though from what we have heard and from what we have witnessed, the headquarters were supposed to be funded up to Kshs510 million. We are told that 70 per cent was to come from the national Government as a conditional grant and 30 per cent was to come from the counties but the figures have doubled. It is with this regard that the Committee resolved to deliberate and interrogate the matter with the view to providing guidelines. Further, this will ensure that the principles of public finance as stipulated in Article 201(d) of the Constitution, is adhered to. Madam Temporary Speaker, upon noting the trends of construction cost expenditure on county headquarters, assembly chambers, offices and residences, the Committee resolved to invite the relevant stakeholders with the view of determining the most appropriate costings. A quick preview showed that counties were at various stage of implementation of aforementioned projects at hugely varying costs."
}