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{
"id": 1431531,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431531/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3887,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thirdly, we are in the 13th year of devolution and there are some counties that are still a shame. If you go to some counties, you wonder whether they have been receiving these billions of shillings. Let us also use this forum to caution counties and some governors that we are not going to see them misuse resources or lazing around and failing to implement development projects for the benefit of the people. Devolution was created so that people in the grassroots benefit and grow, but many governors are corrupt and live large. They are not implementing development projects. If you go to some counties, I do not want to mention their names, you will find that nursery school children do not even have ECD classrooms. The classrooms do not exist but governors are running around in big convoys. There is a governor who travelled to a foreign country with a convoy of more than 100 members of staff. This is something that we really need to talk about. As we give them resources, we must ensure that there is a way to check how they use the resources. I do not think senators are doing a good job in terms of over-seeing counties. That is my personal view. If they were doing a good job, then we would ensure that counties perform with the resources we give them. Senators are only interested in backbiting the National Assembly. They want to do roles that we are supposed to do, overseeing the national government. They have left counties to die. Let devolution work for our people. If it cannot work for our people, we can discuss. Thank you."
},
{
"id": 1431532,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431532/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3888,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. David Ochieng’",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you. Hon. Nyikal."
},
{
"id": 1431533,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431533/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3889,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) James Nyikal",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. This is a basic issue and I would implore the Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee to listen to me. The fact that the Committee noted the need of counties is the basic issue. The basic issue is not whether people support devolution or not. The basic issue is the process of the Budget Policy Statement (BPS). When we consider BPS, we have a tremendous number of details from the national Government telling us the needs of the national Government, department by department and agency by agency. At that time, the National Assembly has no idea what the needs of the counties are. To a large extent, the BPS is a document of the National Assembly. In fact, it is a document of the national Government and not a document of the country. When we come to the Division of Revenue Bill, which is a direct product of BPS, we are actually guided by only two factors. Factor number one is the constitutional requirement of 15 per cent and factor number two is the formula from the allocation of CRA, whose details we do not know when we are discussing BPS at the National Assembly. So, what happens is that, depending on those two factors, we come up with a figure without knowing the details of the needs of county governments. The Chairperson of the Committee is right when he says that when they sat down they started to see the needs of county governments such as ECDs, health, irrigation and water. That is because we missed that information when we were discussing BPS. That is where the Division of Revenue Bill comes from. So, unless we look at that factor, this problem will be perennial. We will always have mediation in this process. The Senate actually has a better insight of what the needs of counties are than us and they understand emotionally and constitutionally that it is their duty to support counties. The National Assembly has no information and we make a decision on division of revenue on that basis. Therefore, we have to wait until senators refuse then we sit down. That is when we start to have an incline as the National Assembly, and not the whole National Assembly but only those who are involved in the negotiations. Hon. Temporary Speaker, this is where the problem is. It is a reflection that we have not implemented the devolution process properly. It also relates to what happens to the ministries. Some ministries are supposed to be devolved but still have national Government 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."
},
{
"id": 1431534,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431534/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3890,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) James Nyikal",
"speaker": null,
"content": "functions. The Ministries of Health; Agriculture and Livestock Development; Water; Sanitation and Irrigation; Mining, the Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs still have a lot of money that is being allocated at the national level while these functions were devolved. At what point does the national and county governments meet and see the need for each other? Where is the link? In my view, the Inter-Governmental Relations Technical Committee (IGRTC) is not working. The CoG Secretariat and the IGRTC are fighting each other instead of working together. How does the national Government get to know the problems of the counties? Where do the technical officers at the county get an insight in the process of the policies that will affect what they will implement? That is the problem and that is what we need to address. Where can we address it? Is it at the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC)? IBEC has this meeting. I will talk to the Chairperson for the Budget and Appropriations Committee because I am interested to listen to this. If IBEC would come with the details that we require and come to us at the time of discussion, we may solve these problems and will not keep having these negotiations year in year out. This is because, we would have seen the need at the National Assembly when we are discussing the Division of Revenue Bill."
},
{
"id": 1431535,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431535/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3891,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "The Temporary Speaker (",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. David Ochieng’): Thank you. I hope the Chairperson for Budget and Appropriations Committee got that. Let us have the Hon. Member for Kimilili. As I said earlier Hon. Members, there are Members who started queuing at 9:30 a.m. and are still on this queue. I am going to follow the queue the way it is."
},
{
"id": 1431536,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431536/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3892,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kimilili, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Didmus Barasa",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this important Bill in this country. For the first time I agree that Kenya, as a country, is progressing. I say so because, since the inception of devolution in this country, the revenue that we are sending to the county has crossed the Ksh400 billion mark. This is 24.4 per cent of the last audited accounts. This is progressive and I am confident that in the near future we will hit the ceiling set by the Constitution of 45 per cent."
},
{
"id": 1431537,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431537/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3893,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kimilili, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Didmus Barasa",
"speaker": null,
"content": "While there have been outcry about some governors living large and not living within the expectations that are expected of them by the members of their respective counties to properly utilise this devolution funds well, I agree that not all counties are not accountable to the people. We have some counties that some governors are stretching their hand beyond the normal and are properly utilising these funds in improving the lives of the people of those counties. We cannot use the behaviour of a few governors who are not spending this money prudently to condemn all the governors in this country. Devolution has done wonders in most of the counties in this country. I am 100 per cent convinced that in the near future all the 47 county governments will begin to utilise this devolution money well so that we can improve the lives of the Kenyan people going forward. I take this opportunity to thank all the Members of Parliament both National Assembly and the Senate who have been burning the midnight oil to refine the Division of Revenue Bill. Most importantly, I thank the Chairperson for the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Hon. Ndindi Nyoro, because his competence and that of the Members of his Committee are expected. We expected they would do well because they have always been a blessing to this country. They have responded to the call of duty when called upon by our Constitution to do these things. As I finish in contributing to the Division of Revenue Bill, I would like the County Government Act to be amended so that they follow the same procedures of a project proposal approval like the way we do with the NG-CDF. There are no projects that can be abandoned even when Members of Parliament or NG-CDF Committee changes year after year because the laws of NG-CDF Act will not allow the new projects to be funded without first completing the previous ones. The issue of having too many pending bills and many abandoned projects by 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."
},
{
"id": 1431538,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431538/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3894,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kimilili, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Didmus Barasa",
"speaker": null,
"content": "the county governments should be a thing of the past. We need to refine those laws to ensure no new project can be initiated without first completing the previous ones regardless of whether they were initiated by the previous governor whether tall, short, dark or light skinned. All those projects are funded from the Exchequer, tax payers of this country and they need to be completed. Hon. Temporary Speaker, it is important to put that into consideration. We should also have a law that prevents governors who are exiting offices from over committing the budget by launching serious projects that require a lot of money which are later on abandoned when a new governor comes in. With these very few remarks, I support this Bill. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1431539,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431539/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3895,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "The Temporary Speaker (",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. David Ochieng’): Member for Sigowet/Soin."
},
{
"id": 1431540,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431540/?format=api",
"text_counter": 3896,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sigowet/Soin, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Justice Kemei",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for the opportunity you have given me so that I can express my support for the Mediated Version of the Division of Revenue Bill. At the outset, I thank you for your pronouncement that we Members of Parliament who come and queue from 9:00 a.m. in the morning should get a fair opportunity to speak to the issues that are being debated. All said and done, the Mediated Version of the Division of Revenue Bill is a product of intense discussions between the Senate and the National Assembly. I want to thank Hon. Ndindi Nyoro and the Co- Chairperson who have made sure that, at least, we get this Bill before the National Assembly so that we can release money to the counties for their projects. As we do so Hon. Temporary Speaker, I want to be on record saying that the National Assembly and most of its Members do support devolution. Even as we do support devolution, we do not support pilferage, wastage and corruption. Those are vices we which we, as the National Assembly, must continue to fight. We also want to clear the impression that we do not support devolution. We support it as much as the Senate supports it. I thank the people of this country for the wisdom which they put into the 2010 Constitution. They created a Bicameral Parliament that is horizontally divided. They did not create the upper or lower House. They did not create a House of Lords or House of Commons. They created a Bicameral Parliament that works for the welfare of the people of this country. Finally, I want to touch on two issues as I wind up my contribution. Firstly, is on agriculture. I would like the Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee to pay attention. Agriculture is a devolved function. Hon. Temporary Speaker, can I have the attention of the Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee? Agriculture is a devolved function. As much as it is a devolved function, we do not know as a country the aggregated amount of money that is devolved to agriculture. We at the national level are appropriating close to 4 per cent of our budget to agriculture. How much of the budget is being devoted by the county governments? How much of that is coming from our partners at the international level who support agriculture? We need to know that as a country. As a country, we want to know whether we meet the 10 per cent threshold which was given by the Maputo Declaration on expenditure in agriculture. In terms of the economic growth of this country, the economy grew by 5.6 per cent in the last one year. The contribution of agriculture is around 19.8 per cent, which is almost 20 percent. If we invest more in agriculture, we should be able to spur the economic growth of this country. At the moment, internationally, we rank second in terms of growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We can get to number one if we spend more money on agriculture. The Chairperson of the Budget and Appropriations Committee noted earlier in his presentation that we are giving Ksh4 billion towards fertiliser subsidy. As we subsidise 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."
}
]
}