REMARKS BY SEN. KEMBI-GITURA, SENATOR FOR MURANGA COUNTY AND DEPUTY SPEAKER OF THE SENATE IN HIS 3RD ADDRESS TO MEMBERS OF THE COUNTY ASSEMBLY OF MURANGA ON 20TH NOVEMBER, 2014 AT THE MURANG’A COUNTY ASSEMBLY The Speaker of the Murang’a County Assembly, Hon. Nduati Kariuki, The entire leadership of this County Assembly, Honourable Members of the County Assembly, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is always a great honour and privilege to have the opportunity to address this distinguished assembly and I would therefore like to start by thanking you Hon. Speaker for your invitation and the warm welcome you and the entire membership of the Assembly have always accorded me. I bring to you fraternal greetings from the Senate and appreciate that our relationship is deepening since our interaction is no longer one way but reciprocal. On 18th September 2014, I was honoured to receive a delegation from your Committee on Delegated Legislation led by the Chair Hon. Bernard Wanyoike Kariuki, MCA for Gaichanjiru who paid a courtesy call on me in my office in Parliament Buildings. They later attended a meeting with their counterpart committees of the Senate and four other counties and shared experiences on their achievements and challenges in implementing their mandate, a meeting at which I had been invited to make a keynote address and subsequently officially open. Such a meeting, as the Members from that Committee will attest, is a useful interaction as legislators are able to share specific cases that they have dealt with, drawing lessons which other counties and the Senate can learn from. Also, the Senate is able to hear firsthand from committees of county assemblies and as you will agree, Committees are the organs through which most of the work of a legislature is done. Therefore in a meeting between Senate and assembly committees, the discussions bring forth very concrete resolutions. Senators also collect useful insights about implementation of devolution from the honourable members who are closest to the people in terms of legislature. To meet an Assembly Committee is therefore a useful means of getting qualitative participation from Kenyans in legislative work. Such meetings are now in the programme of the Senate and only a few days ago, the Senate committee on Legal Affairs had one with counterpart committees from five counties. We want to see more and more of these interactions as the main mandate shared between county assemblies and the Senate is to serve and protect the counties and the people therein whom we have the privilege to represent at the different levels. Honourable Members, If you think about it, on 4th March 2013, Kenyan voters elected eight leaders using six ballot papers to serve in five constitutional bodies. Of the eight, four, that is the President and Deputy President and Governor and Deputy Governor serve in the national and county executives respectively while the other four, the Senator, National Assembly MP, County Women Representative and MCA are legislators. With such a high representation, it is not surprising that the people of Kenya expect that all their problems should have been resolved by now. It is therefore important for all leaders to educate the public on their respective roles and to keep consulting and updating wananchi on the progress made in the discharge of their work. At every opportunity, I take it upon myself to give some form of civic education to tell the people what the respective roles of all the elected leaders entail. It is a challenge I would like to request each one of you to take upon yourselves because the people we represent have a right to know and therefore the capacity to judge our work more objectively. Other than the elected leaders, every Kenyan in any village or town will at one time or another interact with other leaders from development partner agencies, faith based organisations, civil society, cultural icons, private sector and other fronts. We have a free society where persons may come together to pursue collective goals provided they do not violate the laws of the land. It is out of such associations that we have seen for example simple chamas thrive into big multi-national corporate entities, churches develop other arms such as schools and hospitals and local co-operatives grow into national businesses serving the whole of Kenya. On the other hand, we all acknowledge that government may not always be able to provide for every need for every citizen. Article 43 of our Constitution for instance guarantees every person economic and social rights which include the highest attainable standard of health, adequate housing and reasonable sanitation, freedom from hunger and acceptable quality of food, clean and safe water, social security and education. Provision of these rights falls majorly within the purview of county governments. The question is whether or not there is any one government that can comfortably provide all the services under these rights. I submit, Honourable Members, that to achieve a society where most people have economic and social success takes a collective effort among all leaders and the public. Those in elective positions have a role to play in creating a facilitative environment. This includes among others, providing adequate security, putting in place the requisite legal frameworks for the government and other services and protecting the vulnerable in society. But even with all that work, the government would still not single-handedly be able to provide all the services. There would still be need to cooperate with other agents so as to achieve the change we desire in our society. One would only need to look at the Murang’a County Integrated Development Profile to note that with all the natural strengths we possess such as rich agricultural soils, proximity to Nairobi City and an educated human capital, we are still far from guaranteeing that every child born in this county today will access quality education. In fact, a lot of children not just in Murang’a but everywhere in the country get their first education through the efforts of the church or private citizens who have invested in early childhood development centres as opposed to National or County schools, not forgetting that ECDE is a devolved function. We must therefore appreciate the fact that as leaders we are only at the forefront in ensuring development, but development is the collective effort of all that is to say the government, citizens, private sector and the public. The government, which includes the legislature, ought to lead in development by creating an environment where others can set up their social and economic activities and thrive for the common good. We also lead by examining how we have performed in the past so that we may achieve more in the future. Honourable Members, In the recent past we have seen a spur of development activities in the grassroots. This can be noted from the physical infrastructure put up in public institutions and amenities such as roads and stadia, ongoing legislative interventions for instance in the tea sector and upcoming initiatives by the private sector such as hotels. Indeed, travelling through Murang’a County, one will notice many changes that are shaping the county towards self reliance. By way of example, it is now uncommon for people to travel to Nairobi to purchase household items or make bank transactions as these goods and services are locally available in most towns and other trading centres in Murang’a. You will however appreciate that these are services provided by private sector which is more responsive and innovative towards social and economic needs as compared to the public sector but which relies largely on an infrastructure created by the public sector. How much infrastructure - including roads, water, and connectivity and enabling legislations made by the county government through this Assembly will greatly affect and influence the nature the development of the county will take. In the past nineteen months or so, there has been and we continue to see social and economic transformation everywhere, brought about by the change in the Constitution through devolution. However, some of the activities being undertaken by both public sector, development partners and private sector beg the question, is there co-ordination among the leadership? And if not, how can this be improved? Honourable Members, You may have noticed that recent legislation world over has mechanisms within for inter agency relationships. In older legislations, provisions for relationships were very minimal, in the form of appointment of members from different agencies to the organs such as boards created in the legislation. More recently, there is a shift towards deepening of relations where laws create consultative forums. The Public Finance Management Act for instance creates the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) that draws its membership from all the three arms of government. IBEC which is convened and chaired by the Deputy President is a platform where budget proposals and economic policy consultations between the national and county government takes place. Another example is the Summit under the Intergovernmental Relations Act where the President and County Governors confer. The Summit is also fashioned as a dispute resolution forum where issues between the national and county governments can be ironed out. One last example is the Mediation Committee under Article 113 of the Constitution under which framework legislation is negotiated between the Senate and the National Assembly to agree on what legislation affects or does not affect counties. Common features of these consultative fora are that members have a real opportunity to voice their interest and in most cases, consensus is built among members even for contentious issues. Each stakeholder’s views are taken into consideration and this gives room for innovative solutions to age old problems. They are therefore negotiating roundtables where although all stakeholders do not always have the same strength, the consultation leads to co-operation which is ultimately beneficial to Mwananchi, the common or public good. One of the successful outcomes of the Senate/National Assembly Mediation Committee is the amendment to the County Governments Act to create the County Development Boards, popularly known as the Sang Act. The County Governments Act was among five devolution laws drafted as a recommendation by the Taskforce on Devolved Government (2011). The other Acts under this framework being the Public Finance Management Act, the Inter-Governmental Relations Act, the Transition to Devolved Government Act and the Urban Areas and Cities Act. All these Acts create consultative fora aimed at resolving matters among stakeholders in line with the principles of inclusive and consultative governance. Examples of these round-tables under the Acts include the Summit, Council of Governors and IBEC inter alia. Honourable Members, Legislation, like any other work may require updating, especially after it has been tested and its shortcomings noted. This is why the tools of amendment and repeal of laws exist, to allow legislators to respond to the needs of the people by either improving or doing away with laws that do not serve their purpose. One of the inadequacies of the devolution laws mentioned above is that they did not adequately provide relationships between different organs within a County. While there are adequate modes by which relations between the National and County governments are addressed, there are no consultative or a dispute resolution medium between the two arms of county government, that is, the County Assembly and the County Executive. We have witnessed situations where impeachment of Governors has been resorted to even where the issues could have been resolved through roundtable talks between the stakeholders. Sadly, there is currently no forum for such talks. Permit me Honourable Members to mention at this juncture that Senate is considering proposals on how to remedy this problem and that we shall be coming to you for consultation on the same. Back to the devolution laws, another shortfall noted is that there was no framework under which all elected leaders from a county could consult and cooperate to implement their mandate especially in issues of common interest. Mechanisms exist for say the Senator and County Assembly to commune for example as we are doing today or through messages under which an Assembly through its Speaker can communicate to the Senate and vice versa. However, it is only though informal meetings that the elected leaders from the county can come together to discuss issues concerning the county. While there are some counties whose leaders have been able to meet in this way, such meetings have no legal basis and depend on the good will of leaders working together and consequently may not be able to feed into other national processes such as debates on allocation of revenue in the Senate and National Assembly. In addition, while during this term elected leaders from some counties have been meeting, the regularity of such meetings is not guaranteed and it is not a given that such goodwill to have informal meetings will always exist. You will no doubt recall that we ourselves proposed informal meetings at the beginning of our respective terms and that indeed, we did hold one or two meetings which were attended by most of the elected leaders of the county. Because the meetings were not legally anchored and maybe due to suspicions and lack of good will, we were not able to continue meeting which in my considered opinion was unfortunate. I personally found the meetings enriching and I believed they were a great foundation towards the unity of the elected leaders and therefore of the county. It was for these kinds of situation countrywide that it was thought important to have a formal or if you like legal mechanism that would bring together all the leaders of a county to consult and coordinate holistically on county development issues. This was the rationale for the amendment that created the County Development Boards. Honourable Members, County Development Boards are non executive organs where leaders from all over the county can plan, coordinate and evaluate development projects. They will overall serve as an advisory to the county government, donor agencies and national government organs implementing functions at county level. The spirit of the law is to bring together all leaders with two important factors in mind. One that every leader was elected for a particular post and therefore has a specific mandate to fulfil and two, that although individual leaders have diverse mandates, the leadership collectively has a shared mandate to accelerate social and economic development in the county. For these reasons, the deliberations and resolutions of the Board are meant to be advisory, geared towards the common good of the people we serve. The import of this being that the establishment of the Board recognises the unique authority of each leader on the one hand but also acknowledges the advantage of cooperation among leaders in achieving shared goals on the other hand. I can state here without any fear of contradiction that were this law to be implemented, there would be a better use and utilization of public funds, there would be much more transparency, projects and other developments would have a wider public participation and therefore create ownership. Indeed, I am convinced that we would see cases of impeachment of Governors only in very extreme cases of abuse of public trust because save only for implementation, leaders sitting together would be responsible for the projects and programs agreed upon for the county. I do not for my part believe that our county or even our country has reached the level of development or even democracy where we can talk about a pure and coldly efficient separation of powers. These are invariably always work in progress and hardly ever finished products. I do not believe that by sitting together as leaders to discuss what is good for our county and its people in any way undermines the executive authority of the county government. This law was developed with input at public hearings from parties including Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution, the Law Society of Kenya, the Federation of Kenya Women Lawyers, the County Speaker Assemblies Forum, the Council of Governors and the general public. County Development Boards create, in my considered opinion an opportunity for considering issues from a holistic perspective. Leaders can also plan for future spending with a wider scope in mind as opposed to short term plans that consider a limited geographical area. At the Senate for instance, we are developing a framework for management of county education institutions that is Early Childhood Development Education and Youth Polytechnics. National Government has already developed the policy framework which county governments are to implement. If these matters were to be discussed at the County Development Board, the Senator would be enriched by the perspectives of the MCA and county government who understand the unique aspects of that county. Members of National Assembly may understand the urgency and importance of requests for funding by these institutions that may be before them. Any activities being undertaken by national government in this area will also come to the fore and other stakeholders will be able to tap into the available resources. At the end of the day, there is more efficient use of resources to the ultimate benefit of the mwananchi. I of course appreciate that the matter of the Development Boards is now pending in court but I can assure you that we are anxiously awaiting a positive outcome as we believe that this will go towards strengthening devolution which under the constitution we have sworn to protect and defend. In the meantime Honourable Members, our work must continue. In my last address to this Assembly, I talked about the complementary oversight function that exists between the Senate and County Assemblies. The Senate is mandated under Article 96 to exercise oversight over revenue allocated to counties. I believe that the oversight role of Senate over the county government is both collegial and individual. The Senate as a corporate institution has the mandate to carry out the oversight role over all the forty seven counties. And this is why just as one example the Senate Committee on Public Accounts and Public Investments regularly invites Governors to answer or clarify queries emanating from the report of the Auditor General. But the individual Senator I believe cannot sit back (and neither should an individual MCA) and watch if he or she believes there is the need to raise the red flag. Whatever the case, raising the red flag is an exercise in over sighting the county government. As a matter of fact, I did this only recently when I saw the county government advertise a tender for the mapping of natural resources in the county. My view was and still is that to know what natural resources are in Murang’a, the first stop should not be a public tender. This is information in the custody of the Ministry of Mining and/or the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources and is readily available. My fear is genuinely that whichever consultant wins the tender will get the information from the said Ministries, do a cut and paste job and get paid for ‘services rendered.’ I am on record as saying that the meagre resources coming to the county from the national government must be spent prudently for the benefit of the people who have elected us to serve them. County assemblies are specifically mandated under Article 185 (3) of the Constitution to exercise oversight over the county executive committee and any other county executive organs in their respective counties. This is a role that must be guarded very jealously. In an ideal situation, these two oversight roles should feed into each other. If all county assemblies interrogated the Auditor General’s Report for their respective counties and shared their findings with the Senate, the Senate would be able to make general interventions for the whole country based on patterns noted from the county assembly findings. Such interventions would be able to improve efficiency in the devolved system. This synergy between Senate and county assemblies in oversight is yet to be achieved partly because there still appears to exist suspicions or a misunderstanding of how crucial it is for the two institutions to work together. But this must be overcome. If the Senate and the County Assemblies do not work together, then a very important building block for devolution will not be in place and the devolution dream could easily be lost. We must improve on this and I on behalf of the Senate would like to pledge our commitment to assist in any way which we can be of help. I am aware from the meetings we have had with county assembly committees that capacity needs to be developed in your various committees to advance the quality of your oversight work. I welcome you to partner with the Senate from this front. At Senate, we have as a matter of policy started sharing all Bills on our desk with the County Assemblies. This is only but a part of our strategy to continuously improve our engagement with counties, so that we can mutually assist each other in discharging our mandate. Some of the Bills that are in our upcoming legislative agenda include the County Assembly Powers and Privileges Bill that aims to uphold the dignity of county assemblies and give the proceedings of county assemblies due protection and immunity so that Members carrying out their constitutional duties can do so with the assurance of their due authority, dignity and independence. Another proposed legislation is the County Assemblies Services Bill whose object is to entrench financial independence of county assemblies so as to enhance their functional independence that is constitutionally provided for in Article 185. It is hoped that these and other legislations will go a long way in giving assemblies the necessary footing for activities such as summoning of witnesses, informed debates, committee meetings thereby consequently improving the quality of assembly work, especially that of oversight. As I come to the conclusion Honourable members, there is the famous quote in the Bible in the Book of Isaiah that says, “Come, let us reason together”. This quote, in my view, has two significant notions. First, it calls upon people, particularly leaders to logically discuss affairs on behalf of they have sworn to serve. In our case, we have a duty to consider matters reasonably and make decisions for the betterment of our society. Chapter Six of the Constitution which is entitled “Leadership and Integrity” envisages that those of us in leadership shall be men and women of character and integrity who would help steer people to achieve their destiny. We are expected to bring honour to Kenya, dignity to our various offices and to promote public confidence in the integrity of the offices we have the privilege to occupy. All this can be achieved if we are reasonable in our work. And this is a reminder to each of us that the people look upon us and will judge us by our works. The second idea from the above referred to Biblical quote is the need for unity. No one has a monopoly of knowledge however intelligent they may be perceived to be and we can only find solution to the issues that we face today by putting our heads together. Article 10 of our constitution underlines good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability as national values and principles to be practiced by all, but more so by leaders. Values can only be measured through the character of a leader. Leaders hold power and authority on behalf of others and each of us should be able to explain our actions, especially those actions taken on behalf of the public. Leadership is integrity in action. I cannot therefore over emphasise the fact that we owe it to the people who elected us to be sincere in our actions and to use resources availed to us at national and county levels for the common good. We must work together if we are to achieve the goals for which we were elected. Honourable Members, It is widely acknowledged that no great work has ever been achieved without unity among leaders. Our history from the fight for Independence is a testament to this. During the clamour for Kenya’s independence Constitution, Kenyans were only able to get a Constitution when leaders from across different parties came together in the Lancaster House Conferences. After independence, the country progressively became a one party state and plurality was not entertained. On the reintroduction of multipartysm in 1992, there were two General Elections during which the incumbent won against a sizeable opposition. As you may recall, it was finally possible for the opposition to win and take the reins of government in 2002 as a united coalition known as National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC). I need not remind you of the achievements of the NARC government. In Kenya today, you will hardly find an illiterate teenager because of the Free Primary Education Programme which was one of NARC’s greatest achievements. Today, we only talk about improving the quality of education, but the problem of access has already been substantially overcome. Such an achievement was only possible under a united front. I also need not remind you of the consequences of disunity. During the Grand Coalition government of 2008-2013, we saw the national psyche decline due to wrangles within the leadership. Development slowed down considerably. Many Kenyans supported the process for a new Constitution out of among others a desire to rewrite the narrative on leadership and bind leaders to serve Kenyans as opposed to personal interests. This was out of the experience we had had where leaders were pulling in different directions. Honourable Members, As leaders we must deepen engagements among leaders so that we can work together. If everyone works independently, their good works may not be as effective because they will lack the synergy that links them to our shared vision as a country and even as a county. The spirit of our Constitution calls upon us despite our diversity, to unite as Kenyans for our common good. Let us then not be the leaders to be remembered for slowing down our people’s destiny just because our personal egos were so big that we were not able to talk together as people with a common destiny. Let each of us concede our personal points of divergence and in the words of our national anthem arise in common bond united to build this our nation together. Honourable Members, thanks to the new constitution and the determination of the people of Kenya, we have the institution of devolution. I have said many times and I will say it again that I am convinced that devolution is here to stay and that properly nurtured, it will change this country for ever, Because of it, we have our county, a county we are all very proud of. We now have the ability to chart our own destiny as a people. This county is known far and wide for the tenacity and enterprise of its people. Many captains of industry are to be found here. We produced the first PhD not just in Kenya but in the whole region. We produced the very first Mayor of Nairobi Hon. Charles Rubia who, with our own KSN Matiba and other patriots spearheaded the movement towards the second liberation of this country. In earlier history, we had Joseph Kangethe, Job Muchuchu, Jesse Kariuki, Generals Kago and Ihura amongst many others in the fight for independence. What, Honourable Members can we not achieve in Murang’a if we had a unity of purpose? I know that this has been elusive largely because of partisan political interests at the expense of our own development. This is a hurdle I hope to see overcome in Murang’a. I know for a fact that the moment we agree to work together as leaders, to consult constantly amongst ourselves and through us encourage public participation in all we do that shall be the defining moment for our county. That is the point at which we shall have taken off, the point at which the destiny of our county and its people shall have been charted. Honourable Members, I have put my case before you, setting out the reasons why together, we must as leaders come together every so often and find solutions to our common problems. I invite you to come and let us reason together; let us subsidiarise our personal interests for the greater good of the people of our County and for our Country Kenya. I THANK YOU. God bless this Assembly, God bless Murang’a, God bless Kenya. SEN. KEMBI-GITURA, MGH, MP SENATOR MURANGA COUNTY AND DEPUTY SPEAKER OF THE SENATE
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 20:25:21 +0000
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