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{
    "id": 921951,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/921951/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 407,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "telephone in the market, can use it without any struggle. I do not see any difficulty in this. It should be easy to use; I do not see the need for any amendment. It is all about training and we should it by ensuring that it is simple. We should not create complexities like the one we have in IFMIS. When I was an accounting officer, I was told that IFMIS can only be operated by so and so until I got into it and realised what was going on. Unfortunately, the IFMIS is an opaque system though it is being lauded by the Government as being efficient. It is true that it can be efficient when used properly, but it can be totally inefficient when opaque people operate it. There is an element of personal responsibility, which will be required by the county treasury. This Bill seeks to place the authority and responsibility on the county treasury. The Bill later asks the county treasury to be accountable, and if they fail to be accountable, they are to be punished by the same law. There is a lot of fraud of resources that goes on, and it is one of the things that this Bill seeks to stop. I happened to have been the Minister for Local Government. When the local authorities were in place, they used to collect more own source revenue than what is being collected today by the county governments, yet they have the manpower and machinery. What has gone wrong? When you ask, you will be told that the streams of revenue are not being displayed in a manner that is required by the law. Secondly, the revenue collected is not being banked in the County Revenue Account. Instead, it is being used at source, which is illegal. This law will now pin down the county treasury and the county executive, for it will force them to put this money into one account. What they get from the national shareable revenue based on the current Exchequer hardly represents 10 per cent of the annual budget. This is a very small amount of money to expect to run the county, with so many devolved functions. I would have expected that one way we can collect more resources in the counties is to exhaust the revenue streams collection. That way, we can say to the national Government that the county governments can only perform up to a certain level. Beyond that level, we must then demand that the sharing of resources must, indeed, be equitable and not skewed. It must be equitable in the sense that if the agricultural sector or health sector is fully developed, then there is no business of retaining colossal sums of money in the centre, like is the case of the health sector. They are retaining about 91 or 92 per cent of the resources at the national level, and what flows to the county level is only about 8 to 9 per cent. This is terrible and unacceptable. If you have exhausted your own-source revenue and can demonstrate that you are transparent and present your accounts in an accountable manner, then you are equally entitled to demand for fiscal responsibility. You should, consequently, get more of the equitable share from the national Government. This is because this process has been transparent, where the National Treasury, county treasuries and KRA is involved. I dare say that because the only people who know how to run this system are those in the ICT authority. We can seek their input in ensuring that this system is secure, and that we are not taken for a ride. They will ensure that we are not running a system that can only benefit a 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."
}