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{
    "id": 952760,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/952760/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 193,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr.",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "I would like Senators to look at the Schedule No. 2 and 3. The two schedules that are attached to this document which is available at the Table Office will show you a Schedule of conditional grants by the National Government and conditional grants from donors. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for your benefit, the conditional grants by the national Government for purposes of that Motion that was passed here by Sen. Muriuki Karue at the time, is for the construction of the county headquarters. It has come to our attention that in this Schedule, your county is receiving only Kshs1 million while the others are receiving Kshs121 million. We have proposed and recommended on passing of this Schedule, that the Ministry concerned - we have cited here in the Report - will give within 30 days the status of the implementation. The reason for this is that we expect that within five years, these headquarters should have been constructed so that we move to other counties that do not have headquarters. More importantly, we want to see the input of county governments in terms of the headquarters that they have created. There are many others who are queuing in line waiting for this. Thirdly, there is nearly Kshs70 billion on conditional grants from donors. This will concern you, Senators. If you look at our report, fortunately, the Members of the Finance Committee have highlighted in each of those grants, which counties are receiving them. We are concerned that the National Treasury is getting into agreements with partners on behalf of counties for various conditional grants without tabling any document or indicating what criteria they have used for such grants. I would be interested in knowing, for example, when you pick 11 counties that have water towers, why would you leave out the Mau Forest? That is just a case in point, since it is one of our largest water towers. Now that we are having issues in Mau, that sort of funding would help in restoring Mau Forest and many other things. On conditional grants on health and infrastructure, there is one particular conditional grant which if you look at the Schedule KDSP/2 part J, is blank. We have just voted a block figure. That amount of Kshs4.3 billion is going to counties upon fulfilling very ambiguous conditions that we do not know. That is the reason why our County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC) was very concerned about the report by Makueni County being an unqualified report because that is part of the condition that you must bring a clean report, that you must submit budgets in advance, etcetera . In the circumstances, our counties passed budgets on 30th of June, without the county revenue allocation because they were in a hurry to satisfy some of those very ambiguous conditions created by the World Bank without the input and the advice of the Senate that you cannot appropriate money which you do not have. This is for the benefit of counties that are fighting over budgets; Kitui being one of them. We have recommended here that on the passing of this Cash Disbursement Schedule, now that the County Allocation of Revenue Act (CARA) is law, counties can now proceed to have a budget and appropriations. Any other budget that was created outside this framework that is the CARA and the Cash Disbursement Schedule is to that extent unlawful, unconstitutional and null and void. 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."
}