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{
    "id": 938617,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/938617/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 126,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I thank my colleague for informing the House on the developments. However, my problem is: Why should county governments continue accumulating these pending bills, yet every year they sit and plan on how they will fund development in their counties? Yesterday, I called a friend of mine and asked him whether he could hire his trucks. He said: “My brother, three of my trucks were taken by the banks because I could not afford to pay them. This is because a certain governor refused to pay me.” I do not believe that the Controller of Budget (CoB) will solve this problem; I believe that it is this House. I was consulting with Senior Counsel, Sen. Orengo, whether this House can now be scrutinizing budgets from the assemblies to find out whether when they are passed, they have considered pending bills as the first charge in their account. There is no way we will make any progress if we will keep on talking about pending bills. We now hear that IBEC has said that it has come down to Kshs113 billion. That is not a solution in my view. The solution is simple; we look at the issue of the accounting system used by these county governments. We should look at whether we can move away from cash base to the accrual system. For us to help our citizens in this country, we should restrict ourselves to looking at the annual plan and come up with legislation that will bar county assemblies, if it is possible, from passing budgets that do not consider the pending bills. Otherwise, we will continue sending people to Mathari Mental Hospital because we are not bold enough to send them to Kamiti Maximum Prison."
}