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{
    "id": 895101,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/895101/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 308,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to also contribute on the Presidential Address. I commend the President for reaffirming to us, as Members of Parliament, that the nation is strong, that he will continue pressing on with the challenges and that he will not avoid them whatsoever. I also commend him for using the terminology, “no turning back” – no turning back on devolution, corruption, development and on anything that has the prescription of bringing this nation down. So, on that score I thank him for giving us the reassurance that all is well. However, on the question of devolution, we have been told that Kshs1.7 trillion has been devolved since we last recognised the county governments as another second tier of Government. I sit in the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC) and one of the most appalling things we are beginning to see is the squander of public resources at will – not following the laid down procedures and the frameworks that have been put in place to take care of this squander of money. Therefore, in due course, maybe through our Committee, we shall appraise this august House on how we intend to deal with such run away corruption that is embedded in our counties. I would have liked to see more resources devolved to the counties for obvious reasons; that the amount available for development is peanuts and the exchequer releases are always delayed. I would like to see a commitment from the Government that they will reign in on the National Treasury to bring about the timely exchequer releases so that the county governments cannot have any further excuses of saying that they do not have enough resources to deal with matters of development or for that matter, to deal with recurrent expenditure and occasioning the pending bills. The pending bills in this country are crippling. When we last looked at them, they were about Kshs196 billion. A decision has to be made sooner than later on how to deal with those pending bills because there will be no development in as far the counties are concerned, as long as we harbour those huge pending bills in our books of accounts. It is an important point that we need to look at. I note that one of the areas that he spoke about is creating 4,400 water pans under the household irrigation water projects which are intended to irrigate more than 6,000 acres. What happened to Galana-Kulalu Irrigation Scheme which was supposed to irrigate 10,000 acres? I saw the other day in the national media, the ambassador of Israel complaining bitterly that this project was well conceived and if effected properly in a timely fashion, is able to create another bread basket for this nation. My contribution today and request is: Can the national Government reign in on the rogue people who might have squandered the money that was meant for the irrigation 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."
}