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"id": 893941,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Kamar",
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"speaker": {
"id": 33,
"legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
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"content": "I, therefore, recommend that rather than saying that we will facilitate the access, we will look for a way in which somebody else will facilitate, and we demand that we receive that information. Whether it is within the annual report, which is lengthy and takes a whole year for us to get, but if we want to set this country on a path of development, we need to get information faster than in an annual report. Therefore, Madam Temporary Speaker, we may want to have, in one of the sub- clauses, a statement that demands that as they give their expenditures to the Controller of Budget, they also give it to us in raw form. We will then get the analysed one that comes from the Controller of Budget. That way, we will compare what has been analysed and what we receive raw. It is only then that we can talk of proper public participation. I like the way public participation has been translated here to mean taking information back to the people. It is not necessarily saying: “Give us information.” I mean, if you go to some of the communities and ask them to look at your budget where you talk of millions and they have never seen the millions. The minute they see millions, they think you are okay and you are doing very well, unless it gets lost. It is very important, however, that as we analyse that, we talk of public participation as provided here, where you will call the public to give a report card. In fact, it says the Senator “may give a report.” I do not think it should be “may;” we must do it as part of our duty. We must also have a meeting to give reports. Even if the quarterly reports have to come from the Senator, we must go for public participation to say exactly what has happened. Consequently, we must have public participation on the budget and on the fiscal plan. The Senate then takes over public participation as part of oversight from then on. That way, we will help Kenyans. Madam Temporary Speaker, devolution is here to stay, as I said earlier. We must, therefore, plan for it. We should not behave as though it is something that has just happened; we must plan for it. Secondly, oversight must be systematic. Although the Bill says that the Senator will do oversight in their county, I want to add that, that is the first point of oversight. The other point of oversight is actually between the County Senator and the relevant Committee of this House. I mentioned it yesterday, that the relevant Committee is very important when it comes to oversight because they are the ones who have the details and the facts. It is important for us to follow up, which can only be done by the Committee itself. Therefore, whatever we get from the ground comes to the Committee and this will reduce the questions, time and the petitions. Madam Temporary Speaker, many of us have been receiving petitions and we begin negotiating with some of the people, because they do not even know how to write petitions. I hope that as we talk of public participation, one of the items that should come our clearly is training the public on how to do petitions. What do we do after the petitions have come here, so that the people feel that we are doing service to them and responding to their needs? I want to wind up with the issue of experts. The Bill has identified three individuals who should be employed and I agree with that. However, I hope that it will not limit the number to three because we may need to have two or more people to offer secretariat services. However, I agree that we need experts in these offices. Those experts 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."
}