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{
    "id": 996102,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/996102/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 893,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Homa Bay Town, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": "In a constituency like mine, things are very difficult. Pending this approval, the outgoing NG-CDF committee is actually not doing anything because of the financial risks and those other measures we take to ensure that these funds are kept securely. If these committees are gazetted – may I also inform the National Assembly Select Committee on NG-CDF, that there are a lot of administrative bottlenecks being put through circulars and memoranda coming from the Board to fund account managers down at the constituency level. I have had occasions where funding has gone to the project itself. For instance, in Homa Bay Constituency, which is mostly a learning institution; the money is there, but it cannot be used until something called a circular is signed by a district accountant, who had already issued a cheque to the school. The NG-CDF Committee of this National Assembly must sit down and guide the audit office properly so that, if indeed the law… I remember sitting in this House and in that Committee to pass the NG-CDF Act, 2015. We said that the NG-CDF Committee will release money to the Project Management Committee. It is the Project Management Committee that procures and pays out. Accounting is always to the NG-CDF Committee. We have had challenges where the Office of the Auditor-General is requiring the NG-CDF Committee to be the one accounting to funds which are sent to a school and which is being run by the Project Management Committee, which invariably is the board of management and a gazetted accounting office within that institution. So, you get the fund account managers are not moving. You need money, but you cannot move at all. Another challenge we must look at, more so in the realm of procurement, is the issue of payment. Once money goes to a school, we are now being required to get approvals of people called public works. I have a Clerk of Works who is a degree holder in engineering. The person who is now required to approve the works he is dealing with is a diploma holder who has never worked anywhere. The NG-CDF Board sort of has required that those people be paid. The payment is to come from the money meant for administration of the works by the project management committees. I have a situation where a diploma holder who is doing nothing apart from waiting to be paid, is to be paid 2 per cent of the 5 per cent going to the project management committee for each project. This is millions of shillings for doing nothing. The Act says that the NG-CDF Committee will liaise with the national Government offices in the execution of works, but I never imagined that where there is such liaison, the payment should go to an individual. The Public Works Officer is already earning from the county. He draws a salary for doing the work for which the NG-CDF Committee is required to liaise with that particular national Government Department. Giving that kind of money to an individual amounts to corruption. It means that the individual is using the public office he holds to solicit for funds as if he were a private professional. That is unconstitutional. This guy, who is in Homa Bay County, is a quack. Compared to my degree holder, he has done nothing. He just sits in the office and says, “I will sign if you give me my money.” He requires to be given money from a kitty that does not exist in the NG-CDF Act. I request the National Assembly Select Committee on the NG-CDF to look at all these issues. The third and last issue is that we already have the money in the constituencies. If you require that the only people who can be procured to do works by our various project management committees (PMCs) must be people who have money to do the work and be paid later, then why should the money be sent to a school in advance? In Homa Bay Town Constituency, because of the poor economic status, there is no single person who can do the minimum of two primary school classrooms. In the long run, we are going The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}