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{
    "id": 952761,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/952761/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 194,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr.",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13156,
        "legal_name": "Mutula Kilonzo Jnr",
        "slug": "mutula-kilonzo-jnr"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have proposed that we get a policy framework on conditional grants within the shortest time possible. This will help this Senate in the future determine how conditional grants will be given to counties. I read a report by the World Bank and for some strange reasons they are the same people who are giving these grants which suggest that, in future, counties will have a problem because they are getting conditional grants for matters that are devolved. Therefore, there is a possibility of claw back by grants which are not being monitored at county level or at the Senate level. The people at the National Treasury will at some point during our lives, be controlling about Kshs150 billion from conditional grants. That simply means that somebody sitting in the National Treasury behind a desk and a swivel chair will be managing our counties outside the legislative framework. It is a very dangerous precedent which we must get into as quickly as possible because we cannot be conveyor belts for passing grants and for them signing agreements which we do not know. On the latter loan, we do not know for purposes of the people of Kenya the conditions attached to these grants. Are they loans? Are we going to pay? What is it that we are going to do with them? It is important that, that framework is available as soon as possible. Therefore, without belabouring the point, we want to reiterate our position as the Senate and we must say it clearly on behalf of the Chair that we are doing this very reluctantly. However, for purposes of creating a good framework we want that the Public Finance Management Bill that has been read for the first time today to be the panacea for resolving any impasse that is going to result out of the Division of Revenue Bill. There is no guarantee that we are going agree. We want a framework so that the mediators that we will send to the mediation committee in the next financial year or any other financial year are not negotiating with guns on the table and listening to insults from a person in the name of Hon. Duale and others who think that they are dishing money to us. That cannot happen. That should not happen. Lastly, to suggest that counties should receive 15 per cent of recently audited accounts is an insult to the intelligence of Kenyans and to the people who drafted this Constitution. They must be told that 15 per cent is a minimum. It is not a ceiling; it is a floor. That floor cannot form the basis. That amendment that has been forwarded by the National Assembly is so dangerous that if we allow it to pass the way it is---"
}