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{
    "id": 955835,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/955835/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 84,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung'wah",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1835,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah",
        "slug": "anthony-kimani-ichungwah"
    },
    "content": "Senators said in Kitui County yesterday that they have witnessed somewhere a hospital which has been closed down. It is not happening in one county. Hospitals have been closed down in a number of counties because members of staff have downed their tools due to lack of salaries. In other places, there are no drugs. There are places where Kenyans are suffering. You have seen the outbreak of cholera even in Nairobi County because of dirty water. These are issues that ought to be addressed by counties getting their money at the right time. Therefore, I want to urge our Hon. Senators to, please, play politics with anything else, but not the disbursement of money to the counties because they are doing Kenyans a great disservice. I want to move on to the schedules. The issue of own-source revenue was canvassed during the Division of Revenue Bill. As much as we are looking at the Kshs378 billion that will go to the county governments, Kenyans must also ask what the county governments are doing to ensure that they collect adequate revenue, so that in times like this one when there is a delay of disbursement of funds, they generate enough revenue in their counties to offer services to Kenyans. Some of the counties that naturally would receive a lot of money are Nairobi, Mombasa and Kiambu where I come from. I can see Kiambu County will receive almost Kshs9 billion and I hope the acting governor can ensure that we get services to the people of Kiambu County. The Leader of the Majority Party, there is an acting governor in Kiambu County. From the Schedule, a number of counties, because of decline in their own-source of revenue and the formula that is used to share this money, have lost the money that go to them. A case in point is Mombasa County. Last year, they received almost Kshs1.1 billion more than they are receiving this year. This is on account of what they are losing because of not being able to collect more own-source revenue. This is one of the counties that you expect to have collected more taxes from their own-source revenues because of the very good outturn of tourism in the last financial year. This is where we are asking the governors to be innovative. When you travel, and a lot of us travel outside the country, you realise that there are usually levies that go to governments of cities in your hotel bills. Probably, it is time for our county governments to become innovative in counties like Mombasa and other tourist destinations to charge such levies and get more revenue other than dancing to Tetema and other dances in some fora. They should be more innovative in collecting revenues."
}