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"id": 920348,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/920348/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Zani",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13119,
"legal_name": "Agnes Zani",
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"content": "We are now getting to a point also where counties have a chance to sort of compare themselves with other counties relatively in order to evaluate themselves in terms of how well they have done. The basis of that will be on social and economic development, which is what devolution was meant to be. Devolution was meant to ensure that development trickles down from the county to wards and villages. Everybody can feel that their health, economic and other concerns are taken care of. This is critical. Madam Temporary Speaker, Article 202 specifies the two revenues for resources that are meant to be going to counties. They are the equitable share and the county revenue, which most recently we are referring to as own-source revenue. In Article 209(3) of the Constitution, we have a notion of taxes that can be imposed within counties; for example, property rates, entertainment taxes and any other tax that is authorised to be imposed by an Act of Parliament. Already with this structure in place, what has been put into place clearly is a County Executive Committee (CEC) Member for Finance who is meant to come up with an appropriate system for collection of revenue within the county. This includes either this sort of revenue that is already put into the Constitution or any other. More recently in the Senate, we have been urging counties to come up with new and innovative ways of generating more resources for themselves. Consequently, we have the County Tourism Bill, for example, that is urging counties to look at sites that are very important within their counties and try to collect income from that. We similarly passed the Natural Resources Benefits Sharing Bill, which was meant to help counties collect and account for resources so that they can use them. Various counties have systems that are used to collect revenue. In some counties, there are about 11 revenue collection systems. There is no clear mechanism on how revenue is generated within the county, which is what this Bill seeks to address. It seeks to come up with a mechanism that is as uniform as is possible within the counties. That mechanism needs to be transparent, efficient and be created in liaison with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), and the national Treasury. At the end of the day, we need a reliable revenue collection system within the counties. This county revenue collection system will now be mirrored within the various specific counties. That way, each county can cascade, if they so wish, some aspects of that system that is in place. Once this is done, Madam Temporary Speaker, it will help us to move, once and for all, and have a system that will help us to collect revenue across all counties in a very efficient manner. This is the county revenue collection system that Clause 160(a) advocates for its introduction. It is meant to be a consultative system. We know that we have the IFMIS, which has been there for a while now. However, we know that even with the IFMIS, we have not really been able to tap, within the county level, how resources are coming in. It has actually been used more so for the national system in terms of the equitable share that goes back to counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, each county is grappling in terms of county revenue collection system. We had a forum together with Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs) in Kisumu County. At the same time, we held our stakeholder meeting and conference, where there was a very important session on technology. The technological 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."
}