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{
    "id": 893959,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/893959/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 351,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "present their programmes and ideas and that member of the public has an input to what they think should be the way forward in as far as their ward or village is concerned. Madam Temporary Speaker, often, most of the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), which are five-year plans are office documents. They may have very good intentions but they have never gone to the people for them to appreciate that this is what their county will be doing for the next five years. They are told the county has a CIDP which is meant to run for five years; that is all they know. When it comes to annual development plans, when they know that the budgets are a cycle and there is a budget-making process, you will see a lot of advertisements on radio and other places announcing that there will be public hearings for public participation. They will come with vehicles and stand at a place and then say the public is not interested in giving their views. Therefore, they will indicate in their report that the public is either in agreement or they do not know what it is. Madam Temporary Speaker, this Bill now puts these issues into perspective because one of the oversight personalities is the Senator of the area. I would have liked to see in this Bill, participation by the ward MCA. This is because they have also been given the function of oversight. I would have liked to see - if we are going to a ward for public participation - that the ward MCA will have an opportunity to ventilate their views at such a type of gathering. What is the need for this public participation? You synthesize and prioritize information. You also take into account the most important element that affects that community at that particular moment in time. Without that, it is lost in the offices, when the officers go and create new thinking and say: “This is the representative thinking of the county people” when they have had no idea whatsoever what is contained in that document. That is one element that will cure this problem. Madam Temporary Speaker, when it comes to project identification more than often, these projects are created because somebody wants to get a tender. Therefore, they will create a multiplicity of projects everywhere within the county without knowing whether those people are interested or not. It may be that in one area, one of the things they are interested in is water provision. Water has become one of the most acute resources in this country. People want to talk about it. We have diminishing returns in our water resources and therefore, we should be very careful. These plans can only have a meaning to avoid the kind of catastrophe we are seeing in Turkana, West Pokot and the so-called marginalized areas where we are seeing drought and hunger taking effect because the people were never sensitized of the impending calamity that was likely to affect them. The meteorologists were giving weather reports but people did not absorb them. I think that this is an important element of public participation that will cure some of the problems and mis-happenings that are taking place in our county governments."
}