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{
"id": 927683,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/927683/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Garissa Township, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Duale",
"speaker": {
"id": 15,
"legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
"slug": "aden-duale"
},
"content": "of the Republic of Kenya. We have a huge economy. The sum total of the budgets of Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is US$206 billion. The Budget of this country is US$264 billion. That tells you how huge our country’s economy is. We cannot make Kenyans in the counties to suffer because of the egos of governors, Senators and Members of the National Assembly. You will recall that the proposal in the Bill was met with uproar, including even by Members of this very House, who looked at the reduction in various taxation measures that affected that cake. However, we came to a conclusion at the end of the day. Hon. Speaker, permit me to state without any fear of contradiction that the sharing of the cake is a process but not an event. As a House, we cannot give counties a larger slice of the cake just because they want more. When you cook food in your house, it must be distributed equally. You cannot allow your first born to take, in his plate, half of the food that his mum has cooked. You cannot just say that because you want food, you want to get a bigger share. Let me come to the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution. It outlines the distribution of the functions between the national Government and the county governments. The national Government is responsible for 35 functions, which include foreign affairs and policy, international trade, national defence, police service, the courts, the national economic policy, the monetary policy, universities, tertiary education, secondary schools, primary schools, special education and others. The county governments have been assigned only 14 functions, out of which eight are shared with the national Government. So, they only have six functions exclusive to them. You cannot compare one level of Government with 35 functions, some of which are key – like security – with another level of government with 14 functions, out of which eight are shared with the national Government. They have only six functions which are exclusive to them. The distribution of functions effectively assigns the national Government more than three times the number of functions assigned to the county governments. The Constitution, the budget- making process and the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act contemplate that resources are shared based on functions. The Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee (IGRTC) has not costed the functions in the counties, seven years down the line. We do not know the cost of healthcare in our counties. To safeguard the interests of county governments, 15 per cent of the national revenue should be the deciding factor. This Government, which is the first one that implemented devolution, has been giving the counties close to 30 per cent. There is a story which says that the National Assembly, Hon. Junet, Hon. Ichung’wah, Hon. Kimunya and I, are killing devolution, which is a whole chapter in the Constitution. You cannot kill it. For you to kill devolution, you need to call for a referendum. So, do not point fingers at us. Let us look at the figures. We really want you to make a determination today. I pray that the ruling will be in favour of what we are asking. We ask you to send the Bill to the Senate, they look at it and if they can increase… We cannot have two Bills which are moved concurrently. Even before we go for mediation on one Bill, we must mediate on which Bill we should decide on. That is confusion. Why should the two Houses have two Bills? The latest audited accounts, which were approved by this House, are for the Financial Year 2014/2015, which sets out the figure of the national revenue at Kshs1.038 trillion. Fifteen per cent of Kshs1.038 trillion is Kshs155.7 billion. If we were to go by 15 per cent, the 47 counties’ equitable share would be Kshs155 billion. But we have given them twice as much; Kshs316 billion. The Division of Revenue Bill, which was passed by this House last week, sets aside Kshs316.5billion to be shared among the counties. That is Kshs160.8 billion above the constitutional threshold of 15 per cent. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}