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{
    "id": 921942,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/921942/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 398,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "from the Maasai Mara Game Reserve, parking services and cess collection. What I like about the first amendment is that it calls for consultation between the county treasury and the National Treasury. The National Treasury will be able to see the revenue streams and define them as general revenue collection system, but be specific. In this manner, later on, we will not come up with excuses and say that they were given a template by the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) or IFMIS was not working properly. This will not only help counties to generate more revenue or own source revenue, but also help the country in general to be able to say County ‘X’ is doing well here; let us learn from them, so that we can improve. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you travel particularly to Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom (UK), you will see a big screen, which tells you that in Scotland the amount of money that the country has collected from tourism is ‘X’ amount. I would like to encourage Sen. (Dr.) Zani to think about incorporating an aspect of using technology to show competition amongst county governments. For example, if Nairobi City County Government has ‘X’ amount of money through parking services, everyone in Kenya should know. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is wishful thinking, but something that is tenable. This country has been a first in many. All these multinationals that come to this country chose to become cashless. If you go to Carrefour right now, you will not pay with Kenya shillings; you use electronic wallet. It would be good if at one given time, the entire country is cashless. We should sit down and take an application to see how the 47 county governments collect their revenue. This will also help the CRA to come up with proper avenues of how to reward those counties on fiscal responsibilities. The other thing that I find attractive in this amendment is that it will encourage competition. If CRA looks at how much a particular county has generated in terms of their online platform and reward them for doing that, it will help counties to set up realistic budgets and goals in terms of their Own Source Revenue (OSR), and not come up with figures to inflate their budgets which they never achieve. One of my biggest pet peeves is where a county government that only collects a Kshs100 million receives Kshs5 billion from the sharable revenue, and comes up with a budget of about Kshs10 billion. Where will they collect the other revenue? I am happy to note that the Senator has thought about transparency. If you look at all county governments, as I speak right now, there are many loopholes on OSR. The Judiciary is not helping. This House will be shocked to learn that there is a ruling from the Judiciary that says that this House has no business looking at OSR. The best we can do is to come up with legislation that will circumvent that decision. We are tasked by the Constitution to defend, oversight and ensure that the laws that we come up with protect county governments. Right now, most counties have one revenue stream. Everybody knows that it is where money comes from and they do not look at the other issues. That is why, in most cases, we complain and say that in some of our counties, we only rely on one revenue stream and forget the rest. For example, in Narok County, we heavily rely on Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Samburu County heavily relies on tourism and the same applies for Isiolo County, yet we say that there is a lot of 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."
}