At the risk of being vilified by everlasting pessimists and enemies of progress in this county some of who are paid to discredit Governor Kinuthia Mbugua for political and/or other reasons, here is what the admin of this page thinks. When he took-oath of office at Afraha stadium on March 27 this year, Nakuru Governor Kinuthia Mbugua promised, amongst others, that he will run this county as a commercial enterprise. However, about eight months down the line and today would, if one was keeping count or closely monitoring the Nakuru County Executive, one would conclude that today could be marked as the first day in office for the entire government-technically speaking. Not that the Government led by Governor Kinuthia has not has not been working. Today is special because it marks the first day when the ENTIRE cabinet of Ministers, Chief Officers and Public Service Board members are due to MEET, make decisions that are MINUTED and therefore BINDING and ACTIONABLE. For the first time, they have QUORUM TO EXPRESSLY RUN AFFAIRS OF THIS COUNTY THAT THEY DID NOT HAVE TILL LAST WEEK. For the eight months, there have been only four serving county cabinet ministers after the appointments of six others were disputed both at the Nakuru County Assembly and at the Nakuru High Court. Yet the law states that a full cabinet can only consist of half the designated positions meaning the four ministers could not be said to have raised quorum to run county affairs legally as they were short of one to make five which is half of ten. But nevertheless, they had to do their duties amidst rising pressure and skepticism that Nakuru County was lagging behind other counties. This article attempts to highlight some of the achievements made so far even before the official Nakuru County Executive arm is effectively in place. Agriculture: This is the mainstay of the county’s economy and Governor Kinuthia Mbugua made it clear from the onset that this will be amongst the priority areas that his government will focus on. Those in the know remember that while Kiambu and Kericho have coffee and tea plantations that generates great income and jobs for their people, the main cash-crop for Nakuru County-pyrethrum’s-production died ages ago. Dying over 20 years ago at a time when it directly employed over 2,000 people thereby supporting the livelihoods of many others with Governor Kinuthia reckoning that at its peak, it has capacity to employ over 2m employees. Translated, this means that if we make pyrethrum production, distribution and exports a reality, the entire population of Nakuru County residents will be working directly or indirectly in the pyrethrum industry on top of importing extra labour from other counties. Unfortunately, the Governor can do little to take complete charge of pyrethrum as it is an industry regulated by the national government. But Governor Kinuthia did cobble up all Governors from the 14 pyrethrum going counties in Kenya and he has been chairing their regular consultative sessions, one of which influenced the removal of the non-performing top management of the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya led by it’s the lack-of-performance and always complaining Dr Isaac Mulagoli. And it was not easy effecting change in a place where people have pub fingers in cookie jars. It was only last month, indeed on October 7 when Mulagoli was finally given marching orders by Agriculture Secretary Felix Koskei. Mulagoli who was blamed for the collapse of the lucrative industry was replaced by Alfred Busolo formerly Deputy MD Kenya Seed and obviously he could not have achieved much in month could he? Of import is that the 14 Governors have thrown their entire with and resources available, to the revival of the pyrethrum crop production and Governor Kinuthia has been asking farmers to take up the crop during most meeting that he holds. Land For any county to take off land has to be available for development and Dr Alfred Mutua of Machakos has learnt the hard way that no matter how grandiose your vision, landgrabbers will not allow you to repossess what they stole from the public. In Nakuru, one such land that Governor Kinuthia repossess and fenced off recently, is the Naivasha stadium grounds where he promises the county government has started to build an INTERNATIONAL stadium. This means if Jubilee fulfills its promise to build stadia of such standard in the four main top cities of Kenya, Nakuru will have two international stadiums within its boundaries. The profits the county will gain from sports-tourism, stadium hiring etc need not be over-stated. In Nakuru town, there is a prime land that has been hindering its expansion northward occupied by the defunct Kenya Railways Corporation. No other leader saw its potential and its only Governor Kinuthia who did and went a step further, initiated a process to repossess it so that it can be used for the public good and not the four individuals who are currently its allottees. Similarly, there is a policy that every county must have its own agricultural training institute that will be run by its respective governments from next January. The land where Nakuru has its own such institute has been grabbed. Again Governor Kinuthia is in the process of ring-fencing it from grabbers but away from the glare of the media. There are bigger plans in other areas but the cross-cutting theme in initiating all the projects is JOB CREATION. About fuel guzzlers being used in his entourage, look at what the president rides in. Surely when administering over such an expansive county where roads have been neglected over the years by the Kenyatta, Moi and corrupt mayors and County Council Chairmen and councilors who used the money for roads construction and upgrading to enrich their pockets, should he and his government travel by Nissans? What does Governor Mutua and his cabinet ride in? A prime pet project of the Governor is to leave Nakuru County having an international airport and this is in the public domain but if you weren’t taking him please do as he and his government will actualize it although now everything happens or will happen overnight. Let the naysayers hold their horses for now as the Nakuru county government gets to the ground. Roads Roads are high capital projects and require a lot of processes being followed from advertising to awarding tenders and supervising construction and so on. This is time-consuming and cannot happen in a few days, although the expectations of the people during the campaigns were like miracles will be performed by the people they elect. As of late, the money being received by counties is piecemeal meaning we get only so many shillings per month to spend and not a case where our government can pay for instance one contractor a lumpsum amount. This is where running a county commercially as an enterprise comes in. The money from the national government cannot be solely relied on. On top of that the county assemblies all over Kenya are still in an unofficial strike meaning not everything will move smoothly as expected. Some things just need patience plus common sense to understand. It’s not geo-physics. Just a thought for now because the Governor has done and will do much more. However we will not hesitate to point out wrongs in his governance or government because both the skeptics and optimists play a role in society. The optimist invented the plane and the pessimist invented the parachute. Watch this space.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 08:53:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015