{"count":1608389,"next":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=json&page=153380","previous":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=json&page=153378","results":[{"id":1551982,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551982/?format=json","text_counter":765,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Sifuna","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":13599,"legal_name":"Sifuna Edwin Watenya","slug":"sifuna-edwin-watenya"},"content":"nature that require special expertise. I can assure you that the matter that was handled by this so-called expert lawyer that is being paid Kshs1.3 billion can very well be handled by a young lawyer who would not demand the same fees especially where the matter is resolved in the manner in which this one was resolved. The question of expertise is being abused. I have every faith in every advocate who was qualified to be able to handle any matter. Although we do not discount the value of experience, I insist that this thing called expertise is being misused and it is the reason you find counties justifying the need to hire external counsel. They are saying there is low remuneration for the in-house counsel working in counties and insufficient budget to the office of the county attorney. If we took the Kshs1.3 billion that we are supposed to pay this external lawyer and put it in the office of the county attorney, I am sure this insufficiency of budget and the other issues would not arise. Madam Temporary Speaker I would have loved for us to agree in total with the petitioner, but of course they will say, oh you are cutting out external legal practitioners from business that it is unconstitutional and unfair. I hope that the JLAC committee and even the committee of Devolution and Inter governmental Relations will sit down with the Law Society of Kenya. It is a good thing that we have a very good President now at the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). There are things that are happening in our counties that are not acceptable. You will find that the lawyer resides in Nairobi and is always complaining about the state of roads in his estate yet he is taking Kshs1.3 billion for himself. Nairobi City County gets Kshs20 billion Kenya every year in terms of Exchequer. How can you, as one person, take Kshs1 billion out of Kshs20 billion then you want to complain about the roads in Karen? It is not fair. It is absolutely unfair and the LSK should have a conversation with its members. Whereas we do not want to lock them out of county business, it is unconscionable for one person to take such an amount from a county that is struggling to buy drugs for its residents. I am a Member of the County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC). Nairobi City County has the bulk of the pending bills when it comes to legal bills at Kshs20 billion, but this question is repeated in all counties. We have instances where county governors have paid lawyers for simple and straightforward matters. We have often asked them for justification of paying external lawyers instead of using the capacity that they have at the county government. There are questions of how those lawyers are procured. If you look at Nairobi, for instance, once the lawyers have gotten execution orders, the chief officer of finance in Nairobi is always in the cells. They always get orders to arrest her every Friday to force the County Government to pay, yet the County Government has no money to pay these people. Even if they jail the Chief Officer of Finance for three or six months, their money will not be paid. We have this specter of Kshs20 billion in unpaid legal bills and it is unmanageable. I know that many counties have set up task forces to look into the veracity of some of these claims but court in Kitale said that only the Auditor General can tell us which pending bills are payable and which ones are not payable. It stated that the task forces established by counties were illegal. In Nairobi City County, we had a pending The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."},{"id":1551983,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551983/?format=json","text_counter":766,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Sifuna","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":13599,"legal_name":"Sifuna Edwin Watenya","slug":"sifuna-edwin-watenya"},"content":"bills verification task force led by Kamotho Waiganjo and the entire work that they did to tell us which bills are payable and which ones are not was trashed by the courts. So, the county governments are increasingly finding themselves in a very difficult situation. If you look at the veracity of these bills, you will note that some of them are admittedly not payable because of the manner in which the procurement was done. You will also note that the amount of work that was done is not commensurate to what these lawyers are asking for. After the enactment of the County Attorney's Law, many counties have now employed legal staff in their ranks. The Senate also has its own lawyers who go to court to defend this institution. There should be a sunset clause. If the Council of Governors (CoG) feel that the capacity is not where it needs to be, in that it is not at optimum, I propose to the Chairperson for the Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights, that we set a sunset clause. We should state that in the next five years, all counties must have developed that capacity so that they do not give us as an excuse that they have inadequate staffing or do not have capacity to handle complex legal matters. With those many remarks, I second the Motion, but with the rider that we should have made more far-reaching recommendations to stop this practice in our counties. I thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker."},{"id":1551984,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551984/?format=json","text_counter":767,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Veronica Maina","speaker_title":"The Temporary Speaker","speaker":null,"content":" Thank you, Sen. Sifuna."},{"id":1551985,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551985/?format=json","text_counter":768,"type":"scene","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"(Question proposed)"},{"id":1551986,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551986/?format=json","text_counter":769,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Veronica Maina","speaker_title":"The Temporary Speaker","speaker":null,"content":"My dashboard is not showing me any Senator who wants to contribute."},{"id":1551987,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551987/?format=json","text_counter":770,"type":"scene","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"(Loud consultations)"},{"id":1551988,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551988/?format=json","text_counter":771,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Olekina","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":407,"legal_name":"Ledama Olekina","slug":"ledama-olekina"},"content":"Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. I rise to make comments on this important Petition. Allow me thank Laban for having really thought about the expenditures. Some of those expenditures end up being nugatory expenditures in county governments. Why do county governments choose to hire services of lawyers instead of using in-house counsel? We have over 20,000 lawyers in this country and probably 11,000 who are practicing. I am looking at the recommendations which the Committee came up with. Earlier on, we discussed the issue of conflict of interest. I think the first thing that the Committee Members would have done is to declare a conflict of interest and maybe recuse themselves from having to consider this matter because that Committee is made up of lawyers. Of course, lawyers will protect themselves because they are the ones who want to get brief from county governments. In Narok County, we have a matter that has been dragging in court for the last 30 years. It has to do with Ol Kiombo land. To be honest, I do not foresee the county government winning that matter. What will happen is that it will be a pit for lawyers to collect fees. About four lawyers have already benefited from that matter. Two of them, who are senior counsels in this House, have collected not less than Kshs100 million. That The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."},{"id":1551989,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551989/?format=json","text_counter":772,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Olekina","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":407,"legal_name":"Ledama Olekina","slug":"ledama-olekina"},"content":"matter has gone and the owner of the land who is being challenged by the county government won the matter and he was awarded Kshs30 billion by the courts. I was just having a simple conversation with three lawyers in this House; the retired judge, Sen. Sifuna and Sen. Wakili Sigei on terms of legal fees for an award of Kshs30 billion if it has to be cancelled. Sen. Wakili Sigei said, “give me an instruction, just in terms of instructions, of Kshs400 million then let us talk about disbursements.” So, in total it would end up being almost Kshs1.2 billion. You then ask yourself if our county governments have Kshs1.2 billion to pay for a matter that a court has awarded Kshs30 billion? The answer is that we do not have it. One simple lawyer!"},{"id":1551990,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551990/?format=json","text_counter":773,"type":"scene","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"(An hon. Member spoke off record)"},{"id":1551991,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1551991/?format=json","text_counter":774,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Olekina","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":407,"legal_name":"Ledama Olekina","slug":"ledama-olekina"},"content":"I am looking at this recommendation and I think that we have not done a service to that petitioner. Previously, we never used to debate these petitions. However, it is important that we debate them, so that we can poke holes to the recommendations that have been given. The recommendations should have been far more reaching by capping the amount of money that county government can spend on outsourcing legal services. We should cap them to a maximum of Kshs100 million. The county governments should then use in-house lawyers or hire in-house lawyers if they do not have them. Does it mean that we cannot have lawyers who can argue cases better in a country where we have over 20,000 lawyers? In fact, when you look at it, most senior lawyers use junior lawyers to do all the dirty work just for the senior lawyers to be paid."}]}