By Talkafrica Correspondent
Busia County, Kenya: Civil societies network in Busia county has faulted the County government in the manner it conducted the recently completed public participation in the county-integrated development plan.
At a forum that brought together representatives from various civil societies and organizations in Busia under the umbrella of Busia Civil society’s organization Network, it was revealed that out of 900,000 residents of Busia only, 10,000 people took part in participation.
According to Mr. Collins Osuru from my space Kenya based in Busia, most of the forums were stage-managed, where the majority of the participants were the friends of the sitting members of the Ward Assemblies in Busia county assembly who did not carry the real views of the Busia people.
“Most of the area MCAs capitalized on the forum to call for their family members, friend, and supporters to attend the forums because they knew there was some facilitation. The majority of those who turned out were there to please those who invited them without carrying the needs of the people of Busia,” he said.
Ms. Maureen Ayodi from Baridi Kwa Baridi community-based organization said that the mode of selecting the participants in those forums did not consider people living with disabilities.
According to her, some meetings were conducted in story buildings, difficult for those who can’t walk to access the venues where public participation on CIDP was taking place adding that there is a need for future meetings and engagements on the county governance issues to be initiated from the village to the county level.
“CIDP participation forums across the county were not accommodating. Some forums were conducted in story buildings which made it hard for people living with disabilities to access.”
“In the future, there is a need for such arrangements to be organized at the grass root level to the county level to give every citizen an opportunity to attend the forums without incurring any cost. As things stand now majority attend the forums because they know they will be facilitated at the end of the day,” she noted
Mr. Francis Mukamani a member of Kengele civil society challenged Dr. Otuoma’s government to explain to the people of Busia what they intend to do to the pending and stalled projects before developing others in the third-generation CIDP.
According to him, previous CIDPs in 2014 and 2017 were not fully implemented resulting in stalled and pending projects in the county.
“There is a need for the county government to tell the people of Busia the plans they have in place for the pending projects in the county. This is the third CIDP that we are talking about, what happened to the previous CIDPs we had? We have pending and stalled projects yet we discussed them10 or 5 years ago, we need someone to tell us what the way forward about them is,” he questioned
Ms. Sara Martha from Dhamira Moja, a community-based organization urged the county government and stakeholders in Busia to give room for the members of the public to be able to do a period review of the CIDP after 2 or 3years to determine whether the government in place is working on the CIDP or not.
She believes that it is of no use for the government to be organizing public forums to discuss County Integrated Development Plan after every five years but with little impact when it comes to development.
“There is a need for the county government of Busia and other stakeholders to have a periodic review of the CIDP progress instead of waiting for five years to a fault where the government has failed. It is from the review we will tell how the county government is fairing on when it comes to development,” she noted
However, Mr. Thomas Mango, the chairman CSO network lauded the county government of Busia for allowing public participation to take place from the ward levels contrary to what has been happening before where such forums were taking place at the county level.
