HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 955296,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/955296/?format=api",
"text_counter": 145,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
},
"content": "counties or was put before us as evidence that they had been signed by counties in relation to nearly 21 counties, were only available on the first and last pages. It is normally quite a bit tricky for those who deal with documents. People are often made to sign documents without thinking of the consequences or signing the last page of a document without knowing the content. More than 21 counties had signed this MoU but had not read its contents or the contents were not made available to them. Some 16 counties in which all the MOUs that had been signed were in relation to Mandera County. For example, Nyeri County Governor signed, but the document did not talk about Nyeri County but Mandera County. That happened to 19 counties. In fact, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, to some extent, when you look at the counties which had signed, the Governor should be put to account because when a document bears the name of Mandera County and you are a Governor of a specific county and you have staff and legal counsel and you still sign a document that has nothing to do with your county, that was regrettable. The copies of MOUs related to Garissa, Samburu, Bomet, Kakamega and Vihiga counties were not made available. I think these were counties which actually outrightly refused to sign these MOUs. I remember specifically Bomet was such a county. If you look at the amount of the value of the contract in the total sum of USD432 million, which together with other facilities translated to more than Kshs38 billion, that was just an initial figure because there were variations. Under the scheme, each county was paying Kshs95 million annually. This sum was raised upwards. In fact, as we speak, it could be more. It was revised upwards to Kshs200 million, coming to a cumulative figure of Kshs9.4 billion per year. That is from the initial Kshs4.5 billion. All these facts put together show that there was something wrong in the manner in which this matter had been handled; how the negotiations took place, the companies that were involved, the tendering process and the execution of the tenders. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we speak, this is a matter that is still bogging counties. On paper, the national Government will pretend that this is part of the money that is being made available to the counties. Our Committee on Health went round to some counties and there were some counties that had not received these equipment. Other counties had received but had not installed the equipment. Where they had been installed, there was no electricity. Where there was electricity and they were installed, there were no personnel. There were so many logistical problems. Sufficient work was not done in thinking through how the entire project was going to be implemented. It has resulted to the loss of revenue and burdened counties with debt that is not justifiable. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I conclude, this Committee has its work cut for it. As you can see, the first name on the list is Sen. (Dr.) Mbito, who is the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Health, together with his Vice Chairperson, Sen. (Dr.) Ali. We thought that keeping them there was important for purposes of institutional memory. There are many documents already available to this Committee. Some of them have gone round to several counties and that institutional memory was necessary to enable this Committee do its work properly. In conclusion, this is one of the projects where I normally say that a lot of corruption in this country is not done at the time when it is being implemented; it is done"
}