[ad_1]
The achievements of the Mombasa County Government in revenue collection were recognised by the Coast civil society on Thursday.
Zedekiah Adika, president of the Coast Civil Society Human Rights Network, noted the positive developments.
“At the end of the last financial year, our revenue crossed the Sh4 billion mark to Sh4.4 billion. The revenue in the previous financial year was Sh3.9 billion.
“We are likely to cross the Sh5 billion mark by the end of this financial year,” he said.
The Mombasa government has been setting unprecedented targets. The target for this fiscal year is Sh4.8 billion.
Adika spoke at the Sapphire Hotel during the launch of the third phase of the Timiza Ugatuzi project under the Kenya Decentralisation Programme (KDP), implemented by ACT and supported by UKAID.
Timiza Ugatuzi will make decentralization in Kenya more effective. With a particular emphasis on improving service delivery and reducing poverty.
“Today we launch our project for the next six months, where we will focus on several activities. One of them is own income sources.
“We want to increase accountability and efficiency,” Adika said.
The CSO Network chairman said they will monitor the four health facilities in the county including Mlaleo, Kongowea, Junda and Maweni health centres to ensure they have state-of-the-art facilities to provide effective and quality services to residents.
Civil society organizations said progress had been made in facilities, but some areas still needed improvement.
One aspect of this is deploying more health officials at these facilities and providing them with a better supply of medicines.
Timiza Ugatuzi will provide checks and balances to the county with regard to civil society organisations.
Adika said they will also push for the decentralization of national government functions to counties, including health and agriculture.
“The timely release of resources from the national government to the county governments is one of our top priorities,” he said.
The civil society organisation will review certain legislations that affect the counties, including the Revenue Allocation Bill, which Adika said the national government is working to reduce expenditures under.
“They have allocated Sh380 billion but we think it is important that counties get more money if they abide by the law and go with the current trend,” Adika said.
Counties have yet to receive a penny from the national treasury for the 2024/2025 financial year.
Civil society organizations say strengthening institutions is key to making decentralization successful and Mombasa County is doing an excellent job in this regard.
The County Budget Economic Forum is one such body, but Adika said there is still much work to be done.
The county executive’s internal audit committee has not yet been established, a requirement of the Office of the Auditor General and Budget Director.
“We will stick to this policy,” Adika said.
Adika said Mombasa’s growing youth population necessitated the investment of more resources into vocational training institutions.
Civil society organizations say insecurity can only be addressed through a long-term strategy and funding education is one of the best ways to address it.
Adika said Mombasa County Assembly needed to be open to the public through various channels, such as broadcasting its meetings live on radio for free, as Turkana County did.
Assembly Speaker Aharub Khatri said in March that they would conduct the affairs of the assembly during the Mashinani session and the assembly would hold meetings at the grassroots level in various constituencies on a rotational basis from time to time.
Kateri said this would give the public a chance to directly ask what their representatives are doing for them.
Malusha Abedi, the Taita Taveta County Civil Society Organisation chairperson, called on political leaders not to allow reduction in county allocations.
Abedi said counties were receiving inadequate funds and further reductions would not only hamper decentralization but also harm future generations.
Speaking at a celebration of the 10th anniversary of devolution in Eldoret, President William Ruto said all county functions would be devolved to the counties within the next 60 days.
“The counties must be protected at all costs,” he said.
Abedi said corruption must be fought.
Florence Osoo, an ACT Kenya official, said there was good collaboration between Coast civil society organisations and the counties.
“When we started this project, the collaboration between CSOs and counties was not good. We saw this when they were developing the youth policy for Mombasa,” Oso said.
The third phase of the Kurdistan Democratic Party will end in March 2025 and the third phase will cost 4.5 million shillings.
“We are working hard to consolidate the gains we have made since 2021,” Oso said.
[ad_2]
Source link
