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{
    "id": 938019,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/938019/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 167,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kilifi North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Owen Baya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13373,
        "legal_name": "Owen Yaa Baya",
        "slug": "owen-yaa-baya"
    },
    "content": "should have been in an account available for distribution. What has happened is that there is only one distribution. The Constitution says that every year, 0.5 per cent of all the revenue that is collected by the national Government calculated on the basis of the most recent audited accounts of revenue received, as approved by the National Assembly, will be available. I went to the Treasury one day and asked the Cabinet Secretary: Where is the money? How much is it now from the first policy, because inception is counted from the first policy? From the first policy up to today, we should be having billions and billions of shillings available, which the areas that are marginalised should be using. But if you go there today they will tell you that they have sent money to health, education and other things. This is the case and yet the money for the Equalisation Fund is supposed to be held there and it should be running into billions of shillings. Those people who were supposed to benefit from this Fund today still languish in poverty despite the availability of this Fund. One of the explanations I think is that they have spent the money on other purposes but that would be wrong. That would be an injustice. It would even be unconstitutional if they have spent the money for other reasons. There was money that was allocated to schools in my constituency under the Equalisation Fund but to date it has not been used and that was 2015. Now, from 2015 when the policy came into place until today, calculate at 0.5 per cent of revenue, how much is supposed to be available right now in a kitty for marginalisation? That has not happened. Why? Because there are people in the Treasury who have ensured that it is not done because the areas that they come from are not included. And because of that, they say this Equalisation Fund cannot be implemented, because their areas will not benefit. With this Bill, those of us who come from those marginalised areas will have an opportunity to see the catching up that is envisioned in the Constitution. Secondly, marginalisation is a process. If you read the second policy by CRA, they will tell you how marginalisation trickled in this country, from 1932 to Sessional Paper No.10 to the District Focus for Rural Development - all those policies that were there culminated into marginalisation. If you read the history of the marginalisation of the Northern Frontier Districts, you realise that that is how marginalisation started, pre-Independence and post-Independence. You find that especially the North Eastern area, because of the Shifta Wars and the tussle between Somalia and Kenya, it was marginalised systematically by the then Government. It was denied resources for one reason or the other. That is why it is what it is. The areas of Coast were marginalised. Even the Majimbo policy that was being done then and the Harambee philosophy ensured marginalisation of certain communities. Those that did not have resources, remained without resources and no resources were sent there. Those that their people had gone to school and had money and everything, development projects went into those areas because there were deliberate efforts to ensure that other areas remained the same. There is something that needs to be corrected. We cannot equate marginalisation to poverty. We cannot do that and then say all poor areas in this country were marginalised. No! There are those people who became poor because they were marginalised and that is an important fact. They are poor the way they are because there was systemic marginalisation of the people and the areas and deliberate denial of resources for one reason or the other. There was a deliberate attempt to put more resources in certain areas for them to develop faster than the others, the trickle-down effect that is in Sessional Paper No.10. It is very clear that we put money where there was money and those areas where there is no money; we did not put anything, 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."
}