Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 887070,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/887070/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 294,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kiharu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ndindi Nyoro",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13370,
        "legal_name": "Samson Ndindi Nyoro",
        "slug": "samson-ndindi-nyoro"
    },
    "content": "audit for the entire workforce that we have in our counties, most of it is actually unnecessary and pure duplication. Even as you talk about duplication, it is not purely an issue of county governments singularly. There is a lot of duplication when it comes to the devolved functions. In many counties, you find there is a person who is, for example, employed by the Ministry of Agriculture to oversee the work of the national Government in our counties and even in our sub- counties. However, even our governors have the same officer playing exactly the same roles. I tend to believe that, as a country, we need to harmonise the workforce that we have in our counties and streamline the same with what we have at the national Government. I believe it is not just in the counties that I am familiar with but also in the national Government. We tell Kenyans that we have devolved a function like healthcare or agriculture. But even from the Committee that I sit, that is, PAC, I can see billions of money that goes to the Ministry of Health in the national Government and yet, we have given the devolved units most of the functions. Maybe, in future, this House needs to clearly demarcate the functions that are purely devolved so that we do not have this issue of hide and seek where there are some functions that are shared and Wanjiku the taxpayer down there may not know who to apportion blame to when there is a hitch in service delivery. We need to either exclusively devolve a function like agriculture or assign it to the national Government. We need to clearly demarcate the health function instead of having this hide and seek of shared functions. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I heard many Members talk about youth polytechnics that we have in the many villages across our counties. Those institutions can play a very critical role in so far as creating expertise for the many things we are doing as a country and in the concerned counties. Some of those institutions are purely sleeping giants. Some polytechnics have the relevant equipment, but we are not marketing them especially in the counties in terms of having a critical mass of people who are being trained by those polytechnics. There is also the case of under-funding of those facilities where people can only be taught theory. Some of the courses being trained are very technical and practical. Therefore, it is not of any essence to take a person to learn masonry or welding in an institution that does not have the equipment that can impart technical and direct expertise to those students. The elephant in the room when it comes to the revenue allocation per county is the issue of how much we receive. I am talking of my county of Murang’a and many other densely populated counties. It is the voters who pay taxes. It is people who pay taxes and not kilometres! It is Kenyans who pay taxes and who vote and not the cows, camels and trees. It is people. We need to progressively evaluate the formula for revenue allocation when it comes to counties, and give more weight to what matters. What matters in our country are people. Therefore, the population of our counties needs to have a critical percentage when it comes to revenue sharing. I do not find it to be equitable when a county like Turkana has a per capita allocation per voter of around Kshs60,000 compared to my county which is Murang’a, whose per capita allocation per voter is close to a sixth of that - at Kshs10,000. We need a formula that will harmonize and bring about equity in the monies that we allocate to our counties. I have also perused the Report. I have seen that, by the last financial year, the counties owed Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that were the majority of their suppliers, a whopping Kshs108 billion. Probably, this is one of the reasons why there is a cash crunch in our country. We seem to be doing well in terms of many things but, there is no money in the pockets of Kenyans. Parliament needs to make laws that can govern how we handle this issue of pending bills in our counties. We have it right when it comes to the Executive at the national level. Many"
}